adjoining states, or those engaged by the British government for employment in east and central Africa. By section 8 of thisModern regulations. act natives of India are permitted to emigrate under labour contracts only to such countries as have satisfied the government of India that sufficient provision is made for the protection of the emigrants. A country which is duly empowered under the act to receive emigrants may appoint an agent, residing in India, who is responsible for the due observance of the provisions of the law. These agents are under the general supervision of the protector of emigrants. As emigrants have to be recruited at great distances from the port of embarkation, recruiters are appointed by the agents and licensed by the protector. The conduct of these subordinates is minutely regulated. Every precaution is taken to let the emigrant know the exact terms on which he is hired, and to ensure good treatment in the interval between registration and embarkation. Coolies are shipped for the most part from Calcutta and Madras, but of recent years large numbers bound for Mombasa and the Seychelles left from Bombay and Karachi. Both the coolies themselves and the depôt are medically inspected. Only those physically fit are allowed to embark. The vessels for their conveyance are licensed and inspected by the local government. The terms on which emigrants are recruited are settled beforehand by convention with the colonies concerned, and are embodied in ordinances passed by the local legislatures. They vary in detail, but their main provisions relate to the rights and obligations of the emigrants, including the grant of a return passage on the expiry of a specified period, usually ten years. The British colonies to which coolies were exported in the decade 1891–1901 were British Guiana, Trinidad, St Lucia, Jamaica, Mauritius, the Seychelles Islands, Fiji, East Africa and Natal; the only non-British country was Dutch Guiana. Emigration to the French colonies, including Réunion has been forbidden by the government of India since 1886, but there still remain in those colonies some of the former emigrants, and the questions of their treatment and repatriation have frequently formed the subject of representations to the French authorities.
The number of Indian coolies resident in the various British colonies in 1900 was 625,000, of which the largest numbers were 265,000 in Mauritius and 125,000 in British Guiana. There were still 13,800 in Réunion. The regulations The British colonies. governing coolie labour in British Guiana may be taken as typical for the British colonies generally. They are contained in the Labour Ordinance of 1873, which was amended by the ordinances of 1875, 1876, 1886 and 1887. Under these ordinances an immigration agent-general is appointed, to whom medical officers and recruiting agents are responsible, and the emigrants are allotted by him to the separate estates. They regulate the hours of work, the rate of wages, and the general treatment of the coolies, the nature of house and hospital accommodation, the terms of re-enlistment and the conditions of marriage amongst the coolies themselves. The coolies returning from the British colonies to India in 1901 possessed average savings of £19.
During the construction of the Uganda railway large numbers of coolies were recruited in the Punjab and exported from Karachi to Mombasa. During the decade 1891–1901 the number of these emigrants was 33,000; but on the British East and South Africa. completion of the line the emigration practically stopped, while in 1901–1902 there were over 6000 emigrants who returned to India. Some, however, settled in East Africa. Coolies are also exported for government employment in Nyasaland. In Natal the Indian population had by 1904 reached over 100,000 and slightly outnumbered the whites. Many of the coolies had become permanent residents in the colony (see Natal).
According to the census of 1901 there were 775,844 foreigners
in Assam, of whom no fewer than 645,000 or 83% were brought
into the province as garden coolies. The recruiting of these
coolies is regulated by Act VI. of 1901, which provides that a
labour agreement may be entered into for four years, and includes
a penal clause, under which a coolie deserting or refusing to work
may be punished with imprisonment. The coolies can also give
Assam,
Ceylon
and
Burma.
an agreement under Act XIII. of 1859, by which they
are only liable to civil action for breach of contract.
The latter are called non-act coolies. This system of
immigration has made tea-planting the most important
industry in Assam, and has greatly increased the prosperity of
the province. Migration to Ceylon and Burma takes place
chiefly from the Madras ports, and is of a seasonal and temporary
character. The tea estates and pearl fisheries of Ceylon, and the
town work and harvesting in Burma attract large numbers of
Tamil labourers. The respective numbers embarking in 1901
were 117,000 for Ceylon, 84,000 for Burma and 27,000 for the
Straits Settlements. In Ceylon there is no system of recruitment
like that for the Assam tea-gardens. The coolies come in gangs,
each under its own headman, with whom the planter deals
exclusively, leaving him to make his own arrangements with the
individual coolies. The coolies are mostly carried in small
sailing vessels from the ports of Madura and Tanjore, and the
number who permanently settle in Ceylon is not very great.
See E. Jenkins, The Coolie; his Rights and Wrongs (1871); J. L. A. Hope, In Quest of Coolies (1872); and C. B. Grose, The Labour Ordinances (Georgetown, 1890). (C. L.)
COOMA, a town of Beresford county, New South Wales, Australia, 264 m. by rail S.S.W. of Sydney. Pop. (1901) 1938.
The town is the centre of a pastoral district and has a large trade
in furs, while at Bushy Hill, a mile from the town, is a small
gold-field. Cooma, which is pleasantly situated at an elevation
of 2657 ft., is the tourist centre for visitors to the Yarrangobilly
Caves and Mount Kosciusko and its observatory. The caves are
distant 65 m. from the town, situated in the side of a hill, overlooking
the Yarrangobilly river; they are seven in number and of
remarkable beauty and extent.
COOPER, ABRAHAM (1787–1868), English animal and battle painter, the son of a tobacconist, was born in London. At the age of thirteen he became an employé at Astley’s amphitheatre, and was afterwards groom in the service of Sir Henry Meux. When he was twenty-two, wishing to possess a portrait of a favourite horse under his care, he bought a manual of painting, learned something of the use of oil-colours, and painted the picture on a canvas hung against the stable wall. His master bought it and encouraged him to continue in his efforts. He accordingly began to copy prints of horses, and was introduced to Benjamin Marshall, the animal painter, who took him into his studio, and seems to have introduced him to the Sporting Magazine, an illustrated periodical to which he was himself a contributor. In 1814 he exhibited his “Tam O’Shanter,” and in 1816 he won a prize of £100 for his “Battle of Ligny.” In 1817 he exhibited his “Battle of Marston Moor” and was made associate of the Academy, and in 1820 he was elected Academician. Cooper, although ill educated, was a clever and conscientious artist; his colouring was somewhat flat and dead, but he was a master of equine portraiture and anatomy, and had some antiquarian knowledge. He had a special fondness for Cavalier and Roundhead pictures.
COOPER, ALEXANDER (d. 1660), English miniature painter. His works are of great rarity, and the chief are a series representing the king and queen of Bohemia and their children, in the possession of the German emperor; some very remarkable portraits belonging to the queen of Holland, and others in the possession of the king of Sweden and in various Swedish galleries. He was the brother of Samuel Cooper, but whether senior or junior to him is not known, although, according to certain Swedish authorities, he is stated, upon very slight evidence, to have been born in 1605, four years before his more famous brother. He came to Sweden in 1646, and the Swedish documents declare that he was a Jew, and that his full name was Abraham Alexander Cooper. He had previously been residing in Holland, but on reaching Sweden entered the service of Queen Christina, and continued to be her miniature painter until 1654, when she resigned the crown. Two years later, Cooper was in Denmark, carrying out some commissions for Christian IV., but
