Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/64

 liv

,

INTRODUCTION.

with were a population of industrious labourers holding their lands on rents fixed by custom, a system of yeoman communities in possession of varying rights in almost every village, and a number of great landowners generally the representatives of the old Chhattri chieftains, but in a few instances capitalists who had been called into an abnormal position by the abnormal circumstances of the time, elements all knit together by a polity which was older than the oldest tradition, and ready when left to their own unchecked action to resume their ancient places in the immemorial structure.