Bombay
bom-ba, an important commercial city and seaport on Bombay Island, situated on the western coast of Hindustan. Latitude, 18 deg. 53 N., longitude, 72 deg. 52 E. Bombay is the second city of British India in point of size and importance, and lies nearest to the Suez Canal. The harbor is one of the largest and best in the world. The island has been connected with the mainland by a causeway. Docks, harbor facilities, public buildings, street railways, electric lights, enormous goods depots, and hotels give the city an imposing water front. It is the western terminus of the Indian railways. The Victorian station cost $15,000,000, and is one of the finest structures of the kind in the world. A university and numerous fine churches give travelers an impression that Bombay is a European city. The surrounding scenery is bold and striking. The leading article of export is cotton, though a hundred mills are now engaged in spinning. Bombay is to a large country, an empire in fact, what New York is to the United States.
The British acquired the island of Bombay from the Portuguese in 1661. It was the second British possession in India, Madras being the first. The population in 1910 was about 900,000. Though under British control, the people are largely Hindus or Mohammedans, with about 60,000 Parsees. Their religious views are often responsible for occurrences which seem strange enough. For instance, a shipment of animal crackers was rejected on the score that the religion of Mohammed forbids images. Another peculiarity, indicating lack of haste in methods of doing business, is the newspaper service. The price of the leading morning newspaper in Bombay, delivered by mail, is sixty-six cents a month, but if a subscriber will take it from a carrier who delivers it at seven o'clock and will read and return it when he calls again at eleven o'clock, the price is only fifty cents a month. If the subscriber is willing to wait for his morning paper until four o'clock in the afternoon, he may have it at that hour and return it to the carrier the next morning for thirty-three cents a month. Or, if he likes to keep his old papers, he may wait until the next morning after publication, have his paper for thirty-three cents a month, and be under no obligation to return it at all. Thus the same paper may be circulated through three different households and the total revenue therefrom will amount to one dollar and five cents per month.