Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/133

Rh The women of rank live much less dissipated lives than the men, and are generally better fitted for the management of their estates, on which account they are considered intolerable nuisances by the harpies who seek to prey on their husbands and to plunder their estates.

Population.—In 1808 the total population of the district was estimated by Dr. Buchanan at 3,000,000 of persons, of whom 2,100,000 were Mahomedans and 900,000 Hindoos, or in the proportion of seven of the former to three of the latter. The Hindoos appear at one time to have been almost entirely extirpated, most of those now in the district being the progeny of newcomers. The greater part of the landlords are new men who have recently purchased their estates, and who were formerly either merchants, manufacturers, agents of landholders, or native officers of Government. The old zemindars are either the prey of religious mendicants or are totally abandoned to sottish dissipation. Of the Hindoo population only 70,000 belong to the pure tribes, the remainder being impure, very low, or utterly degraded. Slaves are not numerous. They were mostly purchased during the great famine of 1769 and the scarcity of 1787; but they turned out so idle and careless that their employment was found much more expensive than that of hired laborers. The following are the principal towns:—Dinajpur containing in 1808 about 5,000 houses and 30,000 inhabitants; Malda 3,000 houses; Gaur 3,000; and Raigunge 1000.

Indigenous Elementary Schools.—The state of elementary education in this district is, according to Dr. Buchanan, very low. Natives of the district qualified to hold any office superior to that of a common clerk are difficult to be found, and of course strangers fill the principal offices both public and private.

The district has twenty-two police sub-divisions of which thirteen contain 119 elementary Bengalee schools and nine Persian ones, nine of the sub-divisions having no elementary schools whatever. In the towns of Dinajpur and Malda the average number of scholars to each master is about 20 and the fees are from four to eight annas a month, according to the progress the children have made. On an average the fees are six annas each or seven and a half rupees a month for 20 scholars, which in this district is a decent income; but in country places the average number of scholars does not exceed twelve, and the fees are from one to four annas, or on an average two and a half annas a month, so that the total average income is only one rupee and 14 annas a month. Even these small fees are beyond the reach of the bulk of the people, so that, were not many parents at the pains to instruct