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34 the life of the agricultural community in Northern India, had been set aside in Haidarábád. Each cultivator was separately assessed, and entered into his own distinct engagements for the discharge of his quota of land revenue. Thus the common village responsibility had been destroyed; the village headmen, who whether of election or by descent were the local representatives of each village community, had been put aside. The collecting officer had to deal, not with one or two headmen in a village, but with a host of small separate cultivators. Collections fell into arrears. The land revenues had to be reduced. In the destruction of joint responsibility, and in the diminished influence of the village headmen, Mr. Colvin believed, and convinced the Resident that he had found, the key to all difficulties. This had been searched for in the amount of the assessments, in the iniquity of native collectors, anywhere but in neglect of the organic structure of the village community. Looking below the surface, Mr. Colvin satisfied himself, and ultimately satisfied Mr. Byam Martin, that the system of joint village responsibility and the services of the headmen must be reverted to. The system in force dissolved the tie which bound the village together, so that each member was left to the insufficiency of his own resources. It relieved, on the other hand, the headmen from all responsibility for the performance of functions which, in native eyes, are inseparable from their office, and for which they continued to receive remuneration. It rendered the