Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/198

 190 KHE in four days; it was consuming in the four days 441 kachcha sers of coarse grain, so 10 per cent of the expenditure in food is placed to the account of salt. When grain becomes dearer the proportion will rise to 7 per ccnt. The broad result is that salt, even if none is given to cattle, costs a family from 6 to 8 per cent. of its entire expenditure, fuel being pothing, and clothes a mere trifle. Of course in Kheri and Sitapur salt is dearer than in Unao and Lucknow, through which districts it comes. We have seen also that this family consumed 51 pakka sers; now allowing double as much to adults as to infants after the analogy of the food each child will get, that will allow 4'sers 94 chhatáks for each child, 9 sers 24 chhatáks for each adult. There are 6,700,000 adults, and 4,500,000 children under the age of 15 in Oudh; therefore adults will consume 1,534,000 maunds, and children 612,000 maunds--2,146,000 in all. The alleged im- ports into the province average 700,000 maunds. The rule about the consumption of salt is a fixed oue: one chhaták of salt should go to one ser of wheat, and 2 pice weight of salt or 14 pice go to the ordinary allowance of dál, which is one quarter ser (five pice go to a chhaták); therefore if a man eats only vegetables he will cousume eight sers at the 14 pice rate, or 9 sers 2 chhatáks at the 2 pice rate, and if he eats meat every day he will consume half a ser, and its allowance of salt, half a chhaták, will be 11 sers 6 chhatáks, in addition to the dál allowance. However, he will probably only eat meat, even if a Musalman, every second day, and his whole consumption of salt will be 8 sers on dál, and 5 sers 9 chhatáks on meat-in all 13 sers 9 chhataks. The calculation is confirmed by the actual account of a respectable Musalman family of eight adults with servants, whose monthly consumption was 10 sers of salt , or 15 sers per head annually ; this family consumed meat daily; on the other hand some of them were women, so the theoretical and the practical consumptions agree very fairly. We may therefore lay down the consumption as follows for adults; minors will consume half: respectable flesh-eating Musalmans or Hindus with family incomes of Rs. 30 per mensem and upwards, 15 sers per head; mainly vegetable eating Hindus or Musalmans with incomes of Rs. 6 to 30 per mensem, 101 sers; the first class will use Lahore salt at 5 sers for the rupee, the second well salt at 7 sers for the rupee. The small cottier farm- ers and the labourers will not eat salt regularly at all; for it is perfectly obvious that if an ordinary family consists of two adults and three chil- dren, and if the proper allowance of salt will then be 31 sers, costing Rs. 4-6 per annum, and if a labourer's pay is Rs.30, all which facts are proved, then a proper allowance of salt will come to 14 per cent. on his income, and he will not spend it. A small respectable native household of eight persons in Lucknow will spend Rs. 24 per annum on salt alone. In fact more than a month's entire income goes in salt for the year when families spend aceording to the rule which tative experience dictates. It would appear then that to the upper classes the present price is not prohibitive in any degree. The present system raises the natural price of an indigenous 11