Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/45

Rh not necessary now to go into these differences at great length, though a knowledge of them may be deemed indispensable to the young civilian of the present day. The result can be shortly put. The sáyer duties were local and arbitrary charges levied by Zamíndárs on goods passing through their estates by land and water. The ráhdárí were similar in kind. This word properly means a permission or permit for goods to pass: a kind of black mail. Both kinds were formally abolished by the Laws of 1790 and 1793.

Since that date, though such dues have been occasionally levied throughout Bengal by oppressive and high-handed Zamíndárs, within the memory and cognizance of men still living, the theory has been that Zamíndárs are confined in the collection of their dues to rents of cultivated lands, to fisheries, to pasture, and to the natural yield of the jungle and forest. A little further explanation may be expedient in regard to duties levied by Zamíndárs, not on goods passing through their estates and in transit from one Zamíndárí or Parganá to another, but on goods brought and exposed to sale at certain distinct places. These are designated by Shore in language applicable to this very hour, as the Ganj, the Bázár, and the Hát. The Ganj is a wholesale market, though articles may also be retailed at such places by the smaller traders. Familiar examples of such Ganjs, which are centres of enormous traffic, are Sirájganj in Pabná, Nalchití in Bákarganj, and Náráinganj in