Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/115

Rh half Mahomedan. A portion of this population consists of slaves, and the sale of persons in a state of slavery is common throughout the district. On these occasions regular deeds of sale are executed, some of which are registered in the Court of Justice; and when an estate to which slaves are attached is sold privately, the slaves are commonly sold at the same time, although a separate deed of sale is always executed. In the cirminalcriminal [sic] calendars generally more Mahomedans than Hindoos are to be found, but in civil suits the latter fromform [sic] the majority. The Gaur or Bengalee language is spoken with the greatest purity in this district, but the men of rank becoming ashamed of their peculiar accent, endeavor, it is said, to imitate the less correct pronunciation of Calcutta, the modern metropolis.

A census of the population of the city of Dacca was made in 1830 by H. Walter, Esquire, Judge and Magistrate, and an abstract of the results was published in the Gleanings of Science for March 1831, vol. III., p. 84. According to Hamilton the population was estimated in 1801 by the Magistrate of that time at 200,000, in the proportion of 145 Mahomedans to 130 Hindoos; and Bishop in 1823 supposed that it contained 90,000 houses and 300,000 inhabitants. The actual census shows a population of only 66,909 persons, of whom 31,429 were Hindoos and 35,238 Musalmans, the remaining 322 being Armenians, Greeks, Portuguese and French. Amongst the Native inhabitants the proportion of inhabitants to a house was 4. Of the males 10,024 and of the females 7,634 were under 16 years of age. It is considered that the population of Dacca must have fallen off very rapidly since the opening of the free trade, for the chowkeedaree tax when instituted in 1814 was levied upon 21,361 houses, and the amount collected at an average of two annas per house maintained nearly 800 police chowkeedars; whereas in 1830, the number of houses actually assessed amounted only to 10,708, and the number of chowkeedars maintained to 236. Hence in 16 years a diminution in the population of about one-half may be assumed. This falling off is mainly attributable to the gradual decrease of the manufacture of those beautiful cotton fabrics for which Dacca was once without a rival in the world. Coarse cotton piece goods still continue to be manufactured, though, from the extreme cheapness of English cloth, it is not improbable that the Native manufacture will ere long be altogether superseded.

Indigenous Elementary Schools.—Hamilton states that throughout this district there are many Hindoo schools in which the rudiments of the Bengalee language are taught. A public officer, in reply to the circular queries of the General Committee of Public Instruction, states that the only mode of instruction carried on by Natives is by means of domestic teachers employed by opulent Natives exclusively for their own families, but to whose instructions, as a favor, they admit a few of the children of their own domestics. It is added that a few of the middle ranks of society provide an