CHAPTER XXXIV

FURTHER REFORMS NEEDED

Besides what has been incidentally pointed out in previous chapters with regard to the re-building of Cutcherries, and the free access of the public to them, the re-building and rearrangement of the smaller prisons, the grievances of various orders of the people, rewards for snake-killing, the right of way on the public roads of low-castes, and other points, much still remains to be done in the public administration of Travancore, for the true end and aim of all government — the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

One of the first steps to general improvement seems to be to widen the area of political activity by a more equal distribution of public office amongst the various respectable and educated classes of the inhabitants. The Syrian, Roman Catholic, and Protestant Christians jointly form as large a proportion of the population as the Malayalam Sudras, yet being admitted to no department where they have political influence, able men are driven for employment to British India. The Malayalam Sudras, although they number rather less (440,932) than the native Christia

ns in Travancore (466,874), yet, according to the census report, absorb no fewer than 8,647 Government posts in all grades of the service, out of 14,703, while but 651 native Christians were in Government employ, mostly in inferior posts, as messengers and such like. And this, too, in spite of the fact that of the Malayalam Sudras, who, according to the same authority, stand beneath twelve other castes as to the percentage of education among males, only 21.27 per cent of the males (counting from twelve years of age) were able to read and write, while we could show that of the Christians connected with the London Mission, 29.4 per cent, of the males (counting only those from fifteen years of age) were, to a similar extent, educated.

Although the Travancore Government is Hindu, Christians have a just claim to share in the administration, as urged by the Madras Government in 1870, and as in Malabar; in reply to which, the only feasible excuse made is that the magistracy have committed to them the superintendence of temples, which would be polluted by the contact of Christians, or persons of inferior caste.

Let these duties, then, be separated, as is now promised, from those civil functions which rightly devolve upon the magistracy, and which are already sufficiently onerous; and let the ecclesiastical and quasi-charitable establishments be placed under the supervision of special officers, who would soon, if diligent and efficient, save to the extent of their own salaries, and thus really cost nothing to the institutions themselves.

The separation of the work of furnishing supplies to temples on the part of the revenue servants would facilitate the transaction of public business, admit of a considerable reduction of the number of subordinate petty officials, and greatly simplify the accounts, besides permitting the employment of Christians and others in the Revenue Department. It would, at the same time, admit of the conversion on equitable principles, of the whole of the grain assessment into money tax, a highly desirable measure, which has been partly carried out in Nanjinad; as it has lately been in Cashmere also.

The evils and inequalities, vexations and oppressions which accompany the collection of tax in grain, its measurement and estimate of value and its storage by the Sirkar, are great, and universally felt. The proposed change has been effected in the Cochin State; and the supply of rice for the temples and free inns is purchased in the open market, which could also be done in Travancore.

On this subject Hon. V. Ramiengar remarks : “The varying proportions in which the Government demand is collected at present in grain and money, and the differing rates of commutation at which the grain is converted into cash, are a source of oppression and exaction on the one hand, and of fraud and evasion on the other.”

The further extension of popular education would also tend to improvement in every direction. The exclusive caste schools, supported at the public expense, should be opened to all, and a larger proportion spent on primary education for the classes who need it most.

In fact, the most serious real difficulty in the way of practical reform consists in the abject condition of the lower castes, who have been kept under and oppressed by the powerful official and landed classes so long, that they are now often content with their degradation, and rarely lay claim to the commonest rights of humanity.

As Mr. Porter of Cumbaconam remarked, “A strong official class side by side with a timid and ignorant cultivating class — here is a combination full of temptation to an unscrupulous man, and requiring to be watched with peculiar care.”

The intellectual development of the people would relieve them from much suffering, and prepare them for increased usefulness to the State. False and mysterious reports would no longer be bruited abroad.

The humbler classes would become able to defend themselves from the injustice and cruelties of the more powerful. I have seen, for instance, tax. receipts given for half the sum actually paid, the unfortunate taxpayers, who could not read, being told that the receipts specified the whole amount. A badly written petition is sometimes rejected by an official on the pretence that “he cannot read it.”

Documents are collected by the landlord professedly for renewal, and never returned; or are altered ad libitum. By receiving a little education the people will become able to understand the precise nature and extent of their rights, and to claim them. Popular liberty could no longer be denied when “the schoolmaster is abroad.”

Education, which quickens the sense of hardship, also happily tends to emancipate the subject of it. The extension of education and intelligence would rapidly tend to the introduction and growth of arts and manufactures, and an improved system of agriculture.

The necessity which exists for some reform in weight and grain measures, especially the latter; to introduce uniformity, aid commerce, and save the poor and ignorant from fraud and imposition, is by no means unworthy of mention in this connection.

The great variety of rice measures used in South Travancore has long been a subject of complaint, a source of much evil and serious inconvenience to the population generally.

For instance, people usually suppose that the Kottar stamped puddy is exactly half an edungaly; but those which I have tested contained 52-cubic inches : this point should be decided correctly. Authorised measures are difficult to obtain : even in Trevandrum months have been spent in the endeavour to obtain a stamped edungaly. Could not the Sirkar prepare a number of these, and have them ready for sale at the Book Depot, or elsewhere?

The extraordinary confusion in grain measures which prevails would make it so much the easier for the Government to remedy the evil : it might be done with a stroke of the pen, providing the reform were but followed up by the officials throughout the country. The people would hail with gladness an improvement which would enable them to purchase the staff of life with so much more facility, and to compare the prices of grain &c., prevalent in different parts of the country.

As the Nanjinad measure is not even the standard Tamil paddy of 100 cubic inches, and affords no facilities for trade with Tinnevelly, there is no sufficient reason for retaining the local measurement. The Malayalam edungaly might be introduced everywhere, and that with a slight alteration, making it 92.425 cubic inches, so as to be exactly one third of a gallon, and so as to make 24 edungalies equal to a bushel, instead of 24 as at present. Reform in weights is of less pressing urgency, and perhaps not so easily effected.

In legislation and administration the popular liberties and public rights should, in accordance with the liberal tendencies of the age, be steadily kept in view, and the lower classes enfranchised from their hereditary servitude and rigid adherence to old restrictions and pernicious usages. Knowledge and patriotism will thus by degrees make the nation prosperous and happy.

The State, and caste customs having the force of Common Law, exercise at present too much control over civil and social life, and intrude upon the sphere of civilisation and modern progress.

For example, the Government Astrologer in his study in Trevandrum calculates what he thinks ought to be an auspicious day for the first ploughing and sowing of rice, early in the year, which is announced by beat of drum in every village in Nanjinad; and none dare sow his seed before. Bitter complaints are made of the evil of postponing the preliminary operation of rice culture till the beginning of April, in which month this Nallerputtu ceremony usually falls, thus losing the benefit of the earlier rains.

The privilege of using palankeens in travelling, or at marriages, has long been claimed by some castes regarded as inferior; and a curious case occurred some years ago, in which a wealthy Shanar from Tinnevelly was severely fined for this by some officious subordinates, though the fine was afterwards remitted by the Dewan. In all British India the palankeen is freely used; and in Travancore by tailors, workers in gold, silver, and iron, and by masons and others.

A proclamation was issued in M.B. 1041 announcing the removal of such disabilities generally; but the use of the palankeen is still sometimes denied to members of the caste of Oilmongers, and to all beneath them. The oilmongers of Trevandrum were the first to confront the prohibition by conducting, about the year 1874, a marriage palankeen procession along a public road in the capital.

The narrow-minded Sudras of the town preferred a complaint before the local magistrate, who imposed a heavy fine upon the oilmongers as having violated a caste usage. On appeal, the fine was cancelled by the superior Courts, to the great astonishment and confusion of the Sudras, on the just ground that the quiet use of a vehicle on the public road cannot be considered and punished as a criminal offence.

Some time afterwards the oilmongers of Kottar imitated the example of their fellows in Trevandrum, but were fined, on complaint by the Vellalars, by the local magistrate, who, strange to say, was supported by the Peishcar.

This decision also, happily, was reversed by the superior Courts. Encouraged by these liberal decisions, the Potters of Kottar used a palankeen, and were in turn fined by the magistrate, a Brahman too bigoted to see the equity of their claims; and this was again supported by the Peischar, on the ground that there were some Vellalar houses on the road by which the procession was conducted, though it was a part of the great trunk road from Trevandrum to the Cape.

The Ilaviniers or Vegetable Venders of Kottar next followed suit, but the Vellalars threatened a breach of the peace unless their permission was first obtained by presents, and a sum of Rs. 200 paid in token of subordination and homage.

Popular liberty is thus being achieved by slow degrees. The struggle on this apparently trifling question curiously illustrates the battle for liberty which has often been waged in England.

In the census of 1875, it was conceded by the late Maharajah that the former caste designation of Christians should be omitted; which was a great step in advance of the ruling in 1851, that if a man of low caste became a Christian he must ever be considered and treated as of low caste, and that converts to the Christian religion should not pass through the public highway, but only by the field paths.

The omission of the invidious caste designation carried with it pregnant consequences as to the rights of citizenship, and implied that the former caste must be absolutely sunk, as it is in Madras and Bombay. But in many cases this is not carried out. In the census taken in the early part of 1881 some Christians, unable to write, were recorded under their heathen caste designations, and many were enumerated, to my own knowledge, in a rather original and ingenious manner.

The enumerators being unwilling to defile their purity by approaching the houses of the lower castes to affix a house number on the door, or elsewhere, as required by law, called to the householders to bring out into the open some piece of matting, or board, or old cap, on which the house number was stencilled, while the owner stood at a non-polluting distance, and afterwards picked up his property with the number upon it.

Quite recently, too, it is said, a practice has sprung up in a Court at Nagercoil of insisting upon Christians declaring their former caste, and threatening any who may hesitate to do so with committal for contempt of court.

The subject of forced labour also requires the attention of the Government and demands a thorough remedy. The oppressions arising from this cause have already been much alleviated, but they are still considerable.

The extent to which the poor are impressed is shameful for a country calling itself civilized. Many boats beyond what are required for public necessities are seized, and kept waiting for days. Numbers of coolies are impressed, and sometimes kept, as on the occasion of the visit of the last Governor of Madras, locked up till required to carry His Grace’s luggage, so that they may not run away in the meantime.

Bandies are seized and detained, often without the least necessity, simply to extort a bribe for letting them off. On my own journey homewards the bandies engaged by me were seized, and only released on personal application to the Dewan.

On the journeys of members of the royal family public business is dropped by the Tahsildars and their subordinates, in order to attend to the supply of provisions and arrangements for travel and sojourn. Boatmen and handymen flee for fear of impressment; and the roads and canals are cleared, to the hindrance of industry and delay of ordinary passengers.

Forced labour is made an excuse for all kinds of impositions and exactions, many people paying the peons to be relieved of it. The Roman Catholic Vicar of Poonthory, within two miles of Trevandrum, revealed from personal knowledge a melancholy state of things, in a letter which he addressed to the Dewan early in 1881. From this letter the following extracts will tell their own tale. The facts are known to many, and are simply illustrative of the usual practice : —

“The subordinate officials take advantage of any exigencies to enlist forced labour for State purposes, with an indifference to the hardships they entail on the poor, approaching to utter recklessness. The press-gang system is employed by the Granary Superintendent of Valiatory and the Nemum Police, to secure boats, and men to man them whenever required for Sirkar purposes. Every boat and every man in this parish is seized, and black mail levied from such as wish to escape this oppression.

"On the last occasion that boats were required for His Highness and suite to proceed to Attingal, 35 fanams were contributed by the people of Poonthoray as blackmail, while the people at Vilenjam, being required to furnish 14 boats, had to purchase immunity to themselves with another bribe, when the demand at once fell down to two boats.

"The boatmen prefer infinitely to engage in any service, rather than to hire out their labour to the Sirkar, simply to escape hunger by their being called away for several days from their ordinary pursuits to be, in the end, fleeced of payment. It not unfrequently happens that the boatmen decamp; and the head villager buys off the myrmidons of the press-gang by a bribe assessed on the whole village, to escape the grudge that would otherwise inevitably follow in the shape of fines and imprisonments.

“The most flagitious oppression and extortion are practised in the name of the Travancore Government under the pretence of supplying fresh fish every day for the Resident’s table, by which the poor Chriistian fishermen, already ground down by the iron hand of poverty, are deprived even of the means of daily subsistence. A daily contribution is levied, sometimes in fish and sometimes in money, when there may happen to be no fish.”

Boats are also seized for shipping salt, with much loss to the fishermen. The compulsory carriage of salt, and the compulsory supply of writing leaves to Government have long been a formidable engine of oppression and injustice in South Travancore.

I have been unable to learn whether the impressment of Ilavars in the North for watching jails and salt storehouses at night, without any remuneration, has yet been stopped or not. This forced service prevented those liable to it from pursuing their employments, and subjected them to privation and distress; as did also the forest department formerly, by seizing poor miserable wretches for sawing timber in the mountains many miles distant from their homes.

Whatever may be said in favour of the expenditure on Temples as being principally provided for by ancient endowments assumed and managed by the State, it seems evident that the Ootooperahs for feeding Brahmans should by degrees be abolished; and the funds, over three lacs of rupees per annum, put to better and more general use, or expended on Education, Science and Art, on Which not much more than half this sum is spent throughout the kingdom. Those institutions are of comparatively modern origin, having been established only between M.E, 930 and 950, a little over a century ago.

Nowhere is there a parallel in civilized countries to the waste on Brahmans, the undue preference of this class of subjects, and the abuses hitherto prevalent in the administration of this so-called charity. The proportion which goes towards real charity is insignificant, a large part being for mere strangers and vagrants. The whole system tends to foster mendicancy and pauperism, and to increase the number of unproductive and useless members of the community.

Brahmans (and other classes in times of famine) are allured from British territory and demoralised by this mistaken hospitality, so unfair and injurious to the mass of the indigenous population; while the resident Brahmans are kept in a state of real degradation and dependency, and self-respect destroyed, instead of being impelled by the ordinary motives which actuate mankind into useful and profitable channels of activity.

It is only in times of famine that the Travancore Ootooperahs are of any real service to British India; and it would be much better that the people should be provided for considerately in their own country than drawn to a distance by the promise of indiscriminate charity.

The expenditure on Brahmans in Travancore is altogether disproportionate to their numbers, and unfair to other elements of the population. This false charity is confined, with the most trifling exceptions, to those who least need it. A very moderate sum would suffice to meet the demands of real charity for the poor of 40,000 Brahmans; or there need be no great difficulty in their supporting their own poor, as other classes do.

The Christians strongly object to this expenditure of the public funds against their convictions of right; and complain that this institution is the principal cause preventing their obtaining office in the revenue service. The low castes have been sorely oppressed by the temple services; and the Nayars, who have had some little pleasure and benefit from this expenditure, are more and more indulging in complaints of sacerdotal pretensions, and beginning to rebel against their inequitable exclusion on various occasions.

Intelligent Sudras are far from being content with the present state of things. “The question of feeding the Brahmans at the expense of the State is, from the Malayali point of view, an undue advantage given to one portion of the subject population. The Brahmans uphold that the custom is ancient. So also was suttee — put down by law; trial by ordeal also, resorted to occasionally before the god at Suchindram, and put down in Sir Madava Row’s time. These are unjust and foolish customs. There are no State Ootooperahs in British India.

The system of feeding the Brahmans is detrimental alike to the Malayali and to the Brahman. To the Malayan, because the funds that go to defray the expenses of feeding come from the general income of the country. The poor taxpayer supplies food to a non-taxpaying and even ungrateful class of people. It is also detrimental to the Brahmans, for it encourages idleness.”*

If this grievance be not remedied now that popular rights are beginning to be understood, the mutual bitterness and jealousies of various and rival classes will be sure to increase until it is removed.

Perhaps, after all that has been said on sundry topics, the principal desideratum essential for the onward progress of Travancore is the improvement of the character and conduct of the lower officials and ministerial servants of the Sirkar. Their tyrannical and unjust conduct has always produced the greatest portion of the suffering experienced by the common people; it has been worse and more complained of than even the backward and uncivilized state of the laws.

Though some improvement, doubtless, has taken place, this arises rather from the action of the higher officials and Courts, the publicity now given to grievances, and the increased ability of the people to protect themselves and to speak in their own defence, than from any radical improvement in the character of the dominant classes. It is hard work even for the superior officers with the most strenuous endeavours to stem the flood of official corruption; as they are sometimes so overburdened with routine and a variety of duties that they have scarcely time to attend to complaints, and it is difficult to watch over so many officials scattered over the country, banded together to help and to make excuses for one another, and cunning in deception through long practice and established custom. This is the standing difficulty of rulers and administrators.

Notwithstanding admirable reforms recently initiated, Travancore in the present seems to be much the same as Travancore in the past; while the character of the inferior officials remains the same as it was, different systems of administration or reforms pressed from above fail to make so much difference in actual beneficial result to the community as might be hoped for if men of higher principle were employed, or could be had. Much injustice still prevails in the third class magistrates’ cutcherries. Some are unfamiliar with the new rules. Others, who quite expect dismissal through further reform, are grasping at the utmost gain before that comes, seeking to “make hay while the sun shines.”

Still, the efforts made by enlightened rulers are always, in greater or less degree, successful, and it has been noticed that bribery and corruption rise and fall in prevalence with the purity, assiduity, and strictness of administration of each sovereign or dewan. Bribery almost disappeared under Sir Madava Row’s administration, he himself always setting a notable example of incorruptibility.

Hitherto the lowest employes of the State have been regarded by those in the country best acquainted with their character as, in many cases, but a gang of plunderers, rather than protectors of the people and guardians of law and justice. Unequal laws might be modified in their ill effects (as they often have been in England) by kindly and judicious administration; but the public benefit is the farthest thing from the thoughts of the peons, gumasthas, and other assistants, and even some of the Tahsildars. General corruption, incapacity, and dense ignorance of their duty, cruelty and bribery, as far as they dare to indulge in these, still prevail. Only personal interests and private profit are considered by many.

A remarkable testimony was borne in October 1881, to the State of the judicial department in Travancore before 1864, when Mr. M. Sadasiva Pilley was appointed to the head of the Sadr Court, in an address presented to that gentleman by a large number of influential and well-informed natives, under the presidency of the Senior Coil Tamburdn.

They say : — “When the judicial branch of the service appeared most hopelessly tainted with unblushing corruption, and when its administration was characterised by laxity of discipline and want of system, you were called upon to take the helm as the Presiding Judge of the highest Court in the land. — At a time when intrigue and counter intrigue were rampant, and the ranks of the service under you were leavened with corruption and venality, you had often- times to face conflicting interests and inveterate prejudices.”

Next to the general corruption of morals in a heathen land, these public servants of the subordinate grades are driven to such misconduct by the miserable pay which they receive. They are notoriously ill-paid, and common justice to them, as well as to those who are at their mercy, demands a great and speedy reform in the scale of salaries. Until they are fairly paid it is impossible to expect fair service of them; though, of course, proper pay will not of itself make men honest or attentive.

Nothing, however, would help the country so much as some expenditure in this direction. In 1879, the Government of Madras suggested that a portion of the large surplus revenues of the State might be utilised in giving a general increase to all departments. In old times, servants of the State were probably expected to live partly on private means, or, as so often in Oriental countries, to make up their salaries by private charges and bribes.

A Tandakaran (a kind of peon collecting taxes), whom I knew in a large town, had Rs. 3 per month of Sirkar pay, and constant work. “People give him something besides,”he said — that is, he must make a living by bribery and extortion. Posts with a small salary are gladly accepted because the holders are sure of bettering themselves by bribes; how otherwise could these men live?

Yet on some of these subordinate servants of the Sirkar, especially on the Proverticars or Village sub-magistracy, the people must greatly depend for the conduct of business in smaller matters which make up the sum of their daily life, and prosperity or loss in agriculture or trade; and these officials have hitherto been the worst oppressors.

As has been well said, “An ill-disposed Provertikaran is the very personification of oppression, injustice, bribery, and illegality; and no official in the ranks of the public service combines in a single person so many evils as are daily found in the doings of such a man.”

In a decision of the Sadr Court on a dispute regarding landed property, the remark is made : “The case in question appears to us to illustrate very well the way in which Proverticars fabricate evidence and foment litigation. The Pillai who furnished these conflicting accounts must, we think, be dismissed from the service.”

These remarks may be illustrated from events which have occurred within the last few years, for reports of some of which I am indebted to the public papers, and for others to personal observation, and information derived from Administration Reports and other immediate sources.

Oppression and unkindness are exercised towards the poor and low-castes, who can rarely prefer complaints, as they are in other respects dependent on the masters; and could rarely succeed in doing so for lack of means. None of the low-castes, even if they become wealthy or educated, can attain to magisterial honours, just as converts to Christianity were for three centuries excluded from Roman political life. By this arrangement class is set against class and deeprooted prejudices fostered.

Courtesy to the poor is almost unknown among the lower officials. In nothing will they oblige, except duly feed for it. The Cutcherries cannot yet be freely approached. Peons receive petitions or papers from Pulayars with unconcealed abhorrence, ordering them to lay them on the ground. One worthy Peischar took the trouble to make his peons receive these into their hands to carry to the magistrate.

A few of the officials are scarcely accessible, being usually about the Temples or Palaces. Poor suppliants or tenants must induce some high-caste friend to take their letters in. The Peons also endeavour to hinder the low-castes from near approach to bazaars or markets, even where this is allowed by law.

Some Tahsildars we have known abuse all of the poorer classes who apply to them, and keep them at a distance. These men hate to see a decent dress on any man of humble origin, or the chest covered with a cloth; and such are openly reviled, their letters declined on various pretexts, and their business left undone.

Peons have come with summonses (or without any) when the Christians were at worship, or just going to prayer, to seize or forcibly take them away. They are afterwards ill-used, kept waiting about for a few days and then sent off. We have even known them to enter a Christian Church, or stand ready at the door to seize the worshippers on Sunday.

They terrify ignorant complainants by a loud and threatening manner, catching at every verbal error, and threatening them with punishment as false witnesses. Witnesses are forced to sign whatever has been written by the clerks, notwithstanding protests against its accuracy, or ignorance of what has been written, on threats of worse punishment if they do not consent.

Unconscionable delays occur in attending to business, so that suitors are tired out and it becomes not worth their while to continue. One great resort of some officials is to leave letters unanswered, so that people get tired out on smaller matters. In attendance on the public offices and courts, witnesses have been compelled frequently to trudge over roads and kept waiting for days, sometimes hungry, faint and sick, while their private affairs go to ruin. This has been sharply reproved by the Sadr Court.

At the end of the year, when reports have to be made up and forwarded, it is an object to appear to have few arrears on their files, so as to seem very diligent and attentive; work is then hurried up and cleared off in any hasty way, and admission of any new complaints deferred till after the new year has commenced.

Tax receipts are written in a most indefinite manner, without specifying the particular property for which the tax is paid : the people believe this is done to keep the payer in the power of the Sirkar clerks. Such documents are of little use in the Courts, where tax receipts are often relied on as proving possession and rights to property.

Great difficulty is in consequence experienced by those who own several compounds, in making out which receipt belongs to each; and worse still, the tax collectors often deny that the tax belongs to the land for which it was actually paid. In various parts of the country this is a source of much evil, especially to small holders and uneducated people.

Common sense would surely require some definition, name, or number of the particular property referred to in such receipts. A tax receipt for a plot of land on which a mission school was situated was forwarded to the Dewan for his inspection, in 1880, pointing out this omission, as well as that of even the name of the Proverty (village) in which the land lay.

The reply, however, was to the effect that the specification of such particulars in the receipt is highly desirable, but it is never done — evidently to economize the time and labour of Proverty accountants; but that perhaps the desired modification might be made at a future time.

Receipts are also given to persons who cannot read, for sums less than those actually paid. A poor man is told he has to pay, say five fanams, “and here is a receipt for that sum.”He brings the receipt to some one who can read, and finds it is for three only. I have known one pay ten fanams and get a receipt for only two.

A certain Pulayan whose annual tax was two chuckrams was charged more than fifty for a receipt for the same. He refused to pay it. Meantime a transfer was made; the first official left and was succeeded by another, who now demanded money and tobacco equal to a hundred chuckrams. Complaint being made to the Peishkar, he had the unjust official arrested and sent before the judges at Alleppey, and he was dismissed the service and otherwise punished.

An utter want of humanity in the treatment of low-caste prisoners is not uncommon amongst the peons and local officers, embezzling the allowance for the prisoners’ food, by which some have been actually starved to death. An increased allowance is now made, though still, in the smaller and more distant prisons, scarcely sufficient for sustenance; while in the jails at Trevandrum due attention is paid to the diet and medical care.

Various other evils prevailed, in the use of long and heavy iron fetters and chains, wooden stocks and instruments of torture, the confinement of debtors and other defaulters or persons on trial, along with convicted criminals, and of men with women, and the detention of accused persons in other than the legal and suitable places of confinement. I have known coarse wooden stocks made impromptu, and a poor man confined for several days in the courtyard of his own cottage; while his cattle were dying for want of care, and his little property exposed to robbery and going to ruin in every way.

Not long since, a Pulayan escaped from a cage prison in South Travancore. When again caught, he confessed that he had run off because he had been starved for four days, the peons pocketing the allowance for food. The Sadr Court reduced his punishment for escaping, from sixty days’ imprisonment, to which he had been sentenced by the lower Court, to fifteen days, which had, in fact, nearly expired; and they expressed the wish that they had the two peons before them to answer for their misconduct.

Tax is sometimes demanded of persons for lands which they neither possess nor owed for in any way. In a case which I knew, there was some uncertainty as to whether a particular village was in a certain district or in the next, so some poor men who had paid the demand in the one district, for which they had proper receipts, were seized for not again paying in the next district, and only released on application by a friend to the higher authorities.

A low-caste man bought a piece of land from a Sudran, but for three years was unable to obtain the certificate of transfer from the Pillai, or clerk. The magistrate found that the fee due for this was half a fanam, yet the purchaser had already paid five fanams, and was asked for thirty-five fanams more. Many such cases occur.

In assessing and collecting the taxes on jungle cultivation especially, (Sanjayam) which is variable and lies in distant hills and jungles, many opportunities for oppression and fraud occur. The Kuravars, Vdars, and others reclaim plots of waste land in the hills, cutting down small trees, and clearing away the grass. These they cultivate for a year, then leave fallow again for several years. For this there is a fixed meladi or MalavaIram tax.

But the Provertikaran, tax collector, and clerks ask four or six times the proper rate, or profess to measure the land, and say it is much greater in extent than it really is. The Pillai will say, “give me a rupee, and I will make the tax light for you.”The cultivators pay on the seed sown, not on the produce; which is sometimes insufficient to repay expenses, or is destroyed by wild boars, deer, &c. : then they must borrow to pay all demands, else suffer imprisonment. The village Provertikaran and others come and take nearly all the produce, and thus dishearten these poor people from rice cultivation.

They say they would give a tenth or two tenths willingly; but at present they cannot tell what the rules are, or how to calculate the government dues, and whether what they pay goes to the government or to the servants. “The Government,”said an official who understands the matter, “do not get an eighth of what is collected by the tax-gatherers for Malavaram.”

To procure registry of waste lands reclaimed, the poor always have to give from a rupee and a half to three rupees as a present to the Samprithies and other clerks; but still they make excuses, and the business is often not attended to for years.

Without a substantial gratuity it would be idle to expect these men to do their duty. Yet nothing would be more profitable for the government and the country than the reclamation and permanent cultivation of waste lands by these hardy labourers, who would also themselves be raised and benefited by it. One or two of the higher officers deserve great credit for the interest which they take in this subject.

Insatiable greed and extraordinary cunning are displayed in the taking of bribes by the underlings; and indeed there have been times when it was said that there was scarcely an official of any grade free from this vice. Bribes are even extorted by threats of implicating the parties in charges of murder and other serious crimes, if not paid. To allow criminal complaint to be withdrawn, cloths and money are presented to the official. In criminal cases the police naick, similarly influenced, reports the charge a factitious one. An official invites people to a feast and some domestic ceremony, and gets large presents of money, ornaments, &c.

Gratuitous service is demanded of work people and bandymen; if refused, charges are got up against them; or they are over punished on some real charge. Sometimes a judicial servant quietly takes bribes from both sides, but honestly returns that which he received from the losing party !

The village guards extort money and property on the slightest pretexts. Their demand for cloths, money and other goods have sometimes differed but little from highway robbery. In collecting provisions for travellers and officers on circuit, they often robbed the people of fowls, sheep, eggs, fruit, &c., or gave the merest nominal payment for the provisions. Bribes are taken in the evening to the house of the tax assessor, begging him kindly to charge only what is right and fair and really due to the Government.

The Pilleymar (writers and clerks) thus reap a harvest of bribes. Some gumasthas and others regularly earn three or four times their fixed pay. To complain of all this unfairness, bribery, and corruption, only exposes poor and illiterate men to the getting up of false charges of the most serious character.

As the Tahsildars have been until now police as well as revenue officers, they could touch the people on many points, and affect their peace and comfort in many ways. It is exceedingly unpleasant and painful to have been obliged to say so much on such a topic; but faithfulness to the cause of truth and righteousness, and of the helpless and oppressed, demands it; very few of those acquainted with the subject are at liberty to speak plainly and freely upon it; and much more might have been said with perfect truth.