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FYZ

434

CHAPTER

III.

TENURES.

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of the soil The tribal distribution Uneven distribution Incidence of land revenue on the different classes of holdings Extracts from settlement report on amount and value of sub-tenures Prosperity of holders Table showing area and revenue of taluqas— Table showing area of sir lands—Table showing property owned by each caste and tribe —Transfers of property Sub-proprietary title, its nature and origin Pukhtadari Didari Barbasti Sir Nankar Shankalp Birt Groves ^Biswi.

The owners and tenures

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lands of Fyzabad are divided among a few large and an immense number of small proprietors. The number of the ^^t*®^ i^ ^^°"* 17,000, but is not known with correcttenures ofThrsoil""^ ness, because the settlement registers have not been completed. The tables given further on exhibit the estates and revenues of the feudal barons ; also the distribution among the different castes.

The

The Rajkumar Chhattris have more villages than any other

clan or caste

they are new-comers. For the history of their rise, see pargana Aldemau. Of the estates, the three tion. largest ^Mehdona, Pirpur, Dera belong to recent immigrants. It appears that 28 taluqdars have among them 998,000 acres, or an average of 55 square miles each it appears also, from the settlement report afterwards quoted, that many thousands of yeoman proprietors belonging to the same castes and families as the taluqdars have an annual income of forty-four The

tribal diatribu-

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shillings.

Property apparently is in a state of unstable equilibrium; but still more remarkable is the fact that some of the most numerous clans in the district, the Ahirs, the Chamdrs, the Kurmis, numbering respectively 1 66,000, 184,000, and 82,000, have not a single village. The Kurmis had at any rate one large estate, that of Raja Darshan Singh this, however, was forfeited for bad conduct during the mutiny. Even among the Chhattris, the most numerous clans, the Bais, Chauhans, and Bisens, numbering nearly half of the whole, have very few villages.

Uneven

distribution of property

apparent then, not only between the but also between the different indivi"' ^^^^^ composing each caste. It must be remembered, tion of property." however, that the possession of wealth does not constitute such a barrier between different classes in Oudh as in England. The feudal lord lives upon the rent which he exacts from his poorer brethren ; again, he supplies them with food and seed corn when they are in diflBculties, at least this is the view generally taken. It will be observed that 703 villages, covering a quarter of a million of acres, have been given in sub-tenure. These form a little above one-fourth of the lands in the taluqdars' possession. They are held as copyholds at a high but fixed rent, averaging Re. 1-12 per acre. is

different castes,

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