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158 perhaps even as far as Leadenhall Street in London. They also had the sympathizing advocacy of some eminent persons in the Civil Service itself. It may be well, therefore, to place Thomason's opinion beyond the reach of misapprehension by citing some opening paragraphs from his official letter to the Governor-General (Lord Ellenborough), which was certainly drafted by his own hand, and contains a lucid statement of a very controversial matter. He writes: —

'A Táluka is a large estate, consisting of many villages, or, as they would be called in English, parishes.

'These villages had originally separate proprietors, who paid their revenue direct to the Government treasury.

'The Native Government in former times made over by patent, to a person called the Tálukdár, its right over these villages, holding him responsible for the whole revenue, and allowing him a certain percentage, with other privileges, to compensate him for the risk and labour of collection.

'The wealth and influence thus acquired by the Tálukdár often made him, in fact, independent; so long as he paid regularly the sum demanded from him, he was allowed to manage the estate as he pleased. Provision was not made for protecting the rights of the village proprietors, though no one questioned the existence and inviolability of those rights.

'When the country came under British rule, engagements for payment of the Government Revenue were taken from these Tálukdárs, and they were called Zamíndárs, no notice being taken of the village proprietors.

'The Tálukdárs, previously to the introduction of British rule, had often endeavoured to eject the village proprietors, and to appropriate the villages to themselves, and had some-