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 BAH

149

of ordrsary fields worth about One rupee per local bfgha, tolerably near the The Mur^o occupies them the first year he pays one rupee per bigha or thereabouts after two years he pays Es. 1-8, and after three or four he finds himself at Rs. 3-S, which seems the ordinary rate for good garden lands in south Bahraich. This is equal to Rs. 17-8 per acre. village site.





In addition, he will pay one anna in the rupee for the chaukidar and the patwdri jointly. This is not an unfair tax, if not Superadded to a too high rent jts amount will not exceed by more than fifty per cent, the actual cost of the two village officers named. There is a considerable immigration from Sitapur and Bara Banki to the more favoured parts of Bahraich, which has a more equable climate and steadier rains. This influx perhaps causes a greater rise of rents than in other districts.

Withal, the tenantry in Bahraich Seem better fed and healthier than those in Bara Banki or Sitapur. There are very many under-fed and meagre creatures no doubt, but the proportion of such is not so large as elsewhere perhaps high rents have not had time to produce any noxious effect.

In many cases in this district grain rates are simply half and half, in other cases the tenant gets allowances for his ploughmen, such as are described in the Sitapur article. village ren-t-rolls do not exhibit in 1874 any great increase upon past years, at least nothing commensurate to the increase Eiae of rent stated by the tenants, and admitted to have occurred by the landlords' agents. But these rent-rolls are very incorrect ; they do not include the sir or home farms occupied by the landlord or lessee, nor

The

do they include in many cases the lands held upon grain rents. Much of the real increase is concealed. It is only by taking the names of individual tenants from the mass, and testing their tenures and terms, not only by the rent records both of past years and present, but also by the revenue survey measurements, that a conclusion can be arrived at. This laborious Further, the leases of entire villages process I have had to perform. It is true the lessees in many exhibit almost uniformly a steady rise. cases have lost money and been sued for the amount due under these leases but unless there had been at any rate a nominal increase in the rents imposed upon the cultivators in detail,, the village lessees would not

have bid such high sums. The Brahmans in the mass do not probably pay much higher sums than formerly, because some of them allow the increased rent to accumulate, and then wipe out the balance by disappearing. In many cases they return, as there la^nd

great difficulty in getting other castes to occupy the

is

from which Brahmans have been

ejected.

a bankrupt, and as the S^waks form a large proportion of the whole, it may be gathered that the agriThat their peasantry., cultural classes are deeply embarrassed. condition is becoming worse receives support from the fact that a caste formerly exempt from this servitude is now subject to it—that of the Ahirs. The price of a Sawak has also declined from an average of about Rs. 100 tc ani average of Rs. 40: This, it appears to me, is mainly, if not altogether, due to th^ grestbei? supply of tobour owiiJg to^ greater poverty.

As

every S'awak

Indebtedness of

is

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