Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/142

 110 ALA -AD -DIN KHALJI great and small, the Sultan devised special measures against his Hindu subjects. The Hindu was to be so reduced as to be left unable to keep a horse to ride on, to carry arms, to wear fine clothes, or to enjoy any of the luxuries of life. He was taxed to the extent of half the produce of his land, and had to pay duties on all his buffaloes, goats, and other milch-cattle. The taxes were to be levied equally on rich and poor, at so much per acre, so much per animal. Any collectors or offi- cers taking bribes were summarily dismissed and heavily punished " with sticks, pincers, the rack, im- prisonment, and chains." The new rules were strictly carried out, so that one revenue officer would string together twenty Hindu notables and enforce payment by blows. No gold or silver, not even the betel nut, so
 * cheering and stimulative to pleas-

ure, was to be seen in a Hindu house, and the wives of the impoverished native officials were reduced to taking service in Moslem families. Revenue officers came to be regarded as more deadly than the plague; and to be a government clerk was a disgrace worse than death, insomuch that no Hindu would marry his daughter to such a man a state of affairs that showed their feeling against the power that ruled them. All these new enactments were promulgated with- out any reference to the legal authorities. Ala-ad-din AN INDIAN COURT.