Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/16

 BALASOR.

6

monopoly of the salt manufacture and trade. Meanwhile the English were firmly establishing themselves at Calcutta, and the commerce of Balasor and its importance were gradually transferred to that place. Population The population of the District in 1872 was returned at 770,232, on an area the same as at present, namely 2066 square miles. According to the Census of 1881, it amounted to 945,280, or an.

—

increase of 175,048

(2272 per

cent.)

This large increase

previously.

more apparent than

is

on the enumeration of nine years

not, as in

some

Districts of Bengal,

enumeration in 1872, but is an actual advance of a population recovering during a series of prosperous years from the famine which decimated Orissa in 1866.

The

population

inhabited

in

real,

owing

1881

resided in

houses;

160,799

to defective

average

towns and

6331

density

villages,

of

and

457‘54

population,

per square mile, as against 373 persons per square mile in 1872; number of houses per square mile, 81 ’13 ; number of villages per

square mile, 3'o6



inhabitants

according to sex, there were

Divided

per occupied house, 5 '88.

— males, 461,461



Classi-

females, 483,819.

according to religion, Hindus numbered 915,792, or 96'8 per Buddhists, cent.; Sikhs, 47; Muhammadans, 23,804 Christians, 815 fied





4; Jew, I ; ‘others,’ 4817. The chief aboriginal tribes in Balasor are the Gonds, who number 6290; and the Bhumijs, 2767. Among the semi-Hinduized aborigines the most numerous tribes are the Pans, of whom there are 48,192 ; the Kandaras, numbering 24,455 ; and the Chamars, or dealers in leather, 8444. The number of persons of high caste

include

119,373 Brahmans and

The Khandaits, who

dayats.

182,948 Khandaits or Khan-

are by far the most

numerous

caste in

the District, are descended from the soldiers of the ancient Rajas of

who

Orissa,

kept up large armies, and partitioned the land on

strictly

These soldiers were of various castes and races, the officers being of good descent, while the lower ranks were filled by men of humble origin. On the establishment of a caste system, they all

military’ tenures.

took rank with the military castes, but the present Khandaits are

for

the most part hardly to be distinguished from ordinary agriculturists.

The number castes

is

of males in Balasor belonging to jrastoral and agricultural

172,200; belonging to artisan castes there are 47,595, includThere are 26,160 Hindus who do not recognise

ing 65,268 weavers.

caste; the great majority of these (23,057) are Vaishnavs. The population of the District is almost entirely rural, the only town containing

more than 5000 inhabitants being Balasor

The

20,265.

itself,

with a population of

only other places in the District worthy of mention are

Bhadrakh, on the high road between Calcutta and Cuttack



Jaleswar,

Company’s factory stations and Soro, on the Calcutta high road, about midway between Balasor and Bhadrakh. The towns and villages are thus classified in or Jellasor, on the Subarnarekhd, formerly one of the