Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/329

 BENGAL.

319

Saiteuce continued frotn p. 317.]

This Board consists of two members, each of in

own department

his

revenue, the second to

branch agents

although the

all

stationed latter

devoting

other

exercises full powers

attention

sources of revenue.

to

the

land

The opium two opium

is

at

the agents are subordinate to the

aided by a local

whom

his

under the management of Patna and the other at Ghazipur; but station lies in the North-Western Provinces, both

revenue

of the

— one

one



staff

Government of Bengal. They are and sub-deputy agents. At the

of assistants

head of the Gustoms is a special Collector. The minor custom-houses Chittagong and Orissa are under the control of the District Officers. It is scarcely too much to say that, so long as the British power retains the port of Calcutta and the rich Provinces under the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, it would have sufficient revenue to effect the re-conquest of India if any accident should happen in the Punjab or North-West. But the vast income which the Lower Provinces yield is not altogether derived from their own people. China yearly contributes to it about millions in the shape of opium duty, and the inland parts of India contribute over a third of a million to the customs of Bengal. Taking the average thus obtained from other territories and from tributes at under 8 millions, the population subject to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal pays, in imperial, provincial, local, and municipal taxation, nearly 12 millions sterling gross, or about three shillings and sixpence a at

head.

—The

army employed in the territories under the Bengal numbered in 1881-82 only 7875 officers and men, exclusive of a regiment of Madras Native Infantry 720 strong, stationed at Cuttack in Orissa; making a gross total of Of this small force about 4000 troops in Bengal of about 8500 men. are massed in Calcutta and its environs, with a view to their proximity Military Force.

Lieutenant-Governor of

an eye to the internal requirements about 4000 guard the frontiers, with detachments on the lines of railway, which now form the great highways of Bengal. to the seaboard, rather than with

of the country



Taking 8500 as the total military force stationed in Bengal, 2800 consist of European troops and English officers, and 5700 of Native officers and men. The Government is a purely civil one, and the existence of any armed force is as little realized as in the quietest districts of England. Of the 69^ millions of people under the LieutenantGovernor of Bengal, probably 40 millions go through life without once seeing the gleam of a bayonet or the face of a soldier. Internal order and protection Police, and Criminal and Civil Justice. for person and property are secured by a large body of police. This a regular constabulary introduced by force consists of two elements the English Government, and an indigenous police developed out of

—