Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/668

 GOS

590.

itself are said to amount to Rs. 1,91,500. The clean and well kept, its conservancy arrangements being under

year's sales at Goshainganj

town

is

the direct management of the deputy commissioner of the district and the thanadar of the neighbouring police station. The cost of establishment is met by a house tax which has been levied upon all but cultivators, and amounts to Rs. 590. The population numbers to some 3,691 souls by the census of January 1869, and is almost exclusively Hindu.

The agricultural element in this does not amount to one-sixth and the shop-keeping class largely prevails. There are 856 houses all built of mud but two. In the high street is situated the Government vernacular school which is attended by some 90 to 100 pupils, and to this is affiliated a branch school which bears twenty six pupils on its register. The school master has also charge of the district post, and distributes from here the letters for the greater part of the pargana by a staff of runners sufficient to The only other visit any part of it some three or four times a week. Government building is the police station which stands just outside the town on the road to Sultanpur.

At this a police force of twelve constables, with a deputy inspector and two other officers of inferior grade, is maintained to guard an area of some 100 square miles with a population of 568 to the square mile. Opposite to the police station are the somewhat extensive remains of the old fort of Raja Himmat Gir Goshain, who commanded a force of some 1,000 cavalry of the Rajput caste in the reign of Shuja-ud-daula. The small mud walls of the fort are still standing surrounded by a deep moat, now almost fallen in, and overgrown with grass and bushes. The fort was built on the deserted village site, one of the old Bhar dihs of the country, and is elevated enough to command an extended view of the country lying round, which is fertile, highly cultivated, and studded with fine

mango

groves.

Goshainganj was in the Nawabi the head-quarters of the pargana as Goshainganj, and was founded by the Raja Himmat Gir Goshain in the reign of Sljuja-ud-daula in 1754 A.D. He was the owner of the fort already mentioned, and while holding the whole pargana as j^gir for the pay of the troops under his command, transferred the head-quarters of the pargana from Amethi Dingur to the town he built and called after himself, and with the transfer caused also a change in the name of the pargana which had previously been known as pargana Amethi. His power must have been considerable, for as the Nawab Shuja-ud-daula was flying to Pilibhit, the furthest corner of his dominions after the battle of Buxar, he passed the rdja's fort and asked for admission but the Goshain refused.

known

Soon after the restoration of peace and the Nawab's reconciliation with the British Government, the Goshain found it expedient to leave the place, and retire to his native village of Rasdhan near Hardwar, where he was granted a small jagir by the English Government. There are no native structures of any note in the place, except one two small mosques and a few small temples of Shiva and Debi,

or

'