80 MUZAFFARPUR. 16,431; MOHNAR, 7447; SARSUNDHA, 6805 ; SITAMARHI, 6125; GHATARO, 5982; JAJWARALI, 5858; BAHILWARA, 5796 ; KANTA, 5627; SEOHAR, 5475; JARANG, 5273; MANIKCHAK, 5166; BASANTPUR, 5107; DHANAULI, 5052 ; SINGHARA BUZURG, 5032. These sixteen towns contain a total urban population of 158,714, or 6'i per cent. of the inhabitants of the District, leaving 2,423,346, or 93'9 per cent, for the rural population. The Census of 1881 classified the 5154 towns and villages according to size as follows :—1474 contained less than two hundred inhabitants ; 1941 from two to five hundred ; 1253 from five hundred to a thousand ; 386 from one to two thousand; 68 from two to three thousand ; 16 from three to five thousand; 13 from five to ten thousand; and 3 from ten to twenty thousand inhabitants. As regards occupation, the male population was returned in 1881 under the following six classes (1) Professional and official, 10,635; (2) domestic servants, lodging and hotel keepers, etc., 42,447; (3) commercial, including merchants, traders, carriers, etc., 32,151; (4) agricultural and pastoral, including gardeners, 456,404; (5) manufacturers and artisans, 77,233; (6) indefinite and non-productive class, comprising general labourers, male children, etc., 646,861, The material condition of the people is for the most part poor, principally by reason of over-population and consequent low wages. In the southern parts of the Hájípur Sub-division, whether from the more advanced state of agriculture, the superior fertility of the soil, or other causes, the cultivators are in good circumstances; but in most parts of the District the condition of the mass of the people is pinched and stinted. For the improvement of the purely labouring classes, it is difficult to suggest any measures. The supply of labour is much greater than the demand; and the natural consequences of this state of things can only be mitigated by emigration on a large scale, or by temporary immigrations to thinly-peopled Districts at times of harvest. The latter practice already prevails to a certain extent, and, with the increased facilities of travelling afforded by the Tirhút State Railway, will, it is hoped, become more popular year by year. Although the prices of food-grains have risen very considerably during the present century, the wages of field-labourers have remained stationary, i anna and it anna per diem being still the usual rates paid to able-bodied labourers at the present day. Owing to an insufficient protection to the interests of the cultivators, much of the profits that should have been theirs has been swallowed up by other classes. The result is that in good years the majority of the cultivators enjoy a bare sufficiency of the necessaries of life, while in years of short harvests they suffer privation and sink deeper and deeper in debt. Agriculture. --Statistics are not available regarding the area under cultivation or that of the principal crops; but the introductory paragraph
