Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/338

 330 LIC anna. The Collector of Lucknow reports -The tanks and rivers are netted without restriction throughout the year, and necessarily fish, breeding or not breeding, big or small, are taken as they come to the net. The greatest destruction takes place just before the end of the cold season, when the tanks are drying up. There is no restriction as to the size of the mesh of the nets; the smallest size employed is about a quarter of an inch, but regulating it in any locality would be objectionable until there existed a well ascertained want for the passing of such a measure, as all unneces- sary interference with the people is to be deprecated. Still," he continues, "one-inch regulation between knot and knot of the meshes of the nets seems to be really necessary. The objections advanced against prohibiting the sale of the fry of fish in the bazar are ignorance of the ordinary policemen, who, being allowed to interfere with the fish-hawkers, would find in such a law a means of extortion, besides being unable to discriminate between fry and adult fisb." “The Tahsildar of Lucknow can give no approximate number of the fishermen, for this occupation is not pursued by many as their sole business, but principally by boatmen, Pásis, Musalman, labourers out of employ, and Kahárs in their spare time. The fishermen castes are Kaħárs, Malláhs, Koris, Kanjars, Jhabihalias, and Patháns. The supply of fish equals the demand ; large ones realize two annas a ser, and small fish one The small fish are eaten by all classes, the supply of which by all accounts has remained stationary. Large numbers of very small fish are taken by children in shallow pools and lesser streams. The smallest nets have about a half-inch mesh. Fish are not trapped in the irrigated fields during the rains. Fishing is carried on by rod and line, casting nets, drag and hand-nets. The local names are sukhani, pailni, chinta, pandi, khara jhansti, and halka, the various dames referring to the same nets only differing in size one from another."* Wages.--Wages in Lucknow present somewhat different aspects in the urban and the rural portions of the district. They have been about station- ary, or even advanced in the latter; but they have fallen immensely in the former, owing to the departure of the Oudh Court and to the diminished wealth and population of the city. Wages of ordinary agricultural labourers are now, as detailed in Bara Banki, five pice or six pice, according as they offer their services or are sought; or they get grain. Handicraft-men are of course better paid, carpenters get three annas in their villages, four if they leave them, smiths the same. Local weights and measures. I have referred to this subject at great length in the Kheri and Bahraich articles. The local weights and measures have given place to those adopted by the English Government to a greater extent than in other districts, but the local paseri or unit of five kachcha sers is still used for rural transactions. It consists of 28 gandas (vide Babraich and Fyzabad), being smaller than that used in most other Oudh districts. The ganda should consist of four maddu sábit pice- copper
 * Para. 280, Francis Day's Fresh-water Fish and Fisheries of India and Burma
 * Prinsep's Indian Tables, page 63.