GON
—
611
the carpenter, the blacksmith, the cowherd, the washerman, and the barber need not be described here. The patwari and chaukidar, who used to be remunerated partly by small assignments of land and partly by trifling dues, have now acquired something of the character of Government servants, and receive a fixed salary.
—
The ordinary
cultivators
had no
land but
special rights in
any particular plot of
they were resident in the village, they were "^ residents entitled to hold a definite area, commonly calculated in f" ^ili^ ^^'^' on the number of ploughs in their possession, at the customary rates. If the whole village was thus occupied, outsiders would not be permitted to make a settlement. And in any case pahikasht cultivators do not appear to have been invested with any right beyond the receipt of the customary share of the produce of the land cultivated by them during the current year. It may be doubted whether the most oppressive landlord ever in any case even attempted to collect more than this customary share, and a stipulation securing the proper division of the grain was not an infrequent feature in leases granted to the village heads by the
Government
official
if
or local chieftai^i.
Our administration has endeavoured, as far as possible, to maintain this The great chieftains are now in the position of malguzars
state of things.
for their respective parganas, or sh-ares of parganas, and the moderation of the assessments is some compensation for the inevitable loss of political status consequent on the introduction of a powerful central Government. The village heads have generally been assured by decree of a certain proportion of the rents of the village, and it perhaps is too early to form an opinion of the effect of the Rent Act on the position of ordinary
cultivators.
pre-eminently the district of large landed properties, and twentyOH© taluqdars hold estates covering 1,341,448 acres, and landed proprietors, and how including 1,993 whole villages and 199 shares ; 875 assessed. viUages or shares are held on the ordinary tenure by small proprietors. The principal estates are those of the Maharaja of Balrampur with 568,188_ acres. Raja Krishan Datt Ram Pande with 226,871 acres, and Maharaja Man Singh with 201,734 acres, or 888, 354, and 304 square miles, respectively. The taluqas are assessed at Rs. 12,77,262, which falls at the rate of 15 annas per acre on entire area, while the mufrad or small proprietors are assessed at Rs. 4,22,121 on a total area of 408,030 acres, giving a revenue rate of Re. 1-0-6 per acre. The apparent advantage on the side of the taluqdars is due to the fact that the Maharaja of Balrampur holds the whole of the immense thinly-populated and poorlycultivated plains of Tulsipur, and has, besides, one-tenth of the revenue of Balrampur proper, an area of nearly 400 square miles, remitted as reward As a rule, consideration has been had for large coparfor loyal services. cenary bodies of village proprietors, and they have been assessed lower in proportion to the area of cultivated land in their possession than the more considerable landowners. Th« settlement returns in this district have only been partially compiled, and the decision of claims to proprietary rights is far from completed, so that it is impossible to give any idea of the extent and value of sub-proprietary tenures, and it is not certain that the
This
is
Principal
_
