records of the changes are preserved, where what they and their fathers had held for no registers of births, marriages, or deaths years; and sometimes it would even happen are kept, except in the families of the very that the very head farmer, who had managed rich, there is ample cause for confusion in the concerns of the village with satisfaction to the proprietary right to the respective por-all concerned for many years, with a couple tions of land into which the estates have of hundred biggahs under his own cultivation, become divided. In addition to this, the would be left in possession of only ten or country has been placed constantly under twelve. young boys of three or four years standing, Practically the evil produced by the proone-half of which has been spent in College ceedings of the Collectors has been much and the journey to the interior, who were greater than that caused by the Judges. utterly ignorant of the people, and customs These officers were almost always men of conof the country, yet who were allowed to assess siderable standing, and may therefore, with the amount of revenue, and have been vested with all sorts of judicial powers to decide ed some experience and knowledge of the some exceptions, be supposed to have acquirclaims to landed property of the most intri-people. What sort of persons were too often cate nature. After all this a claim is ad-appointed Collectors, or to act as such, I have vanced by one of the family, or other person, above described. Besides the Judge was to some portion of the estate. All is confu-obliged to go through a legal investigation sion and uncertainty. The revenue officers before he pronounced his decision: the Colare usually guided by one rule; that is, to lectors merely held a short summary enquiry give the preference to the one who is most and the order was given. Nay, a bribe to a likely to pay his rent with the greatest regu-native revenue officer would not unfrequently larity. The judicial officers under the idea cause a man to be put in possession of a piece of being guided by the Hindoo or Mahometan of land, while the ousted person might strive law, generally go back to the earlier ancestor for months and years, and not procure justice whom they can trace, and according to the number of sons in each generation, award to the suitor the portion which would fall to him. Then again the decision of neither one or other class of officers ever mentioned the number of biggahs awarded to any person; it was so many biswahs, biswansees, &c. without at all specifying in what part of the estately just according to the abstract law of the the land was situated.

after all. But were the principle on which the Judges acted in suits for land fully carried into effect, it is probable that one half the lands in the country would be at once thrown out of cultivation; and most certain that affrays, bloodshed, and murders without end, would follow. Besides the decisions are rare

case. Written records, such as can be deIt is difficult to decide theoretically which pended upon, do not exist, and the award is has been productive of most evil. By the generally guided by tradition; the little derevenue officers, estates or protions of estates pendance which can be placed on this may be were taken from one and given to another, imagined from the fact (an experiment easily those to whom they were given being register- tried by any one) that if a hundred men of ed sometimes as thikkadars (renters) at others any village were separately called on to give zemindars (proprietors) without any apparent in a genealogical tree of his family for two or reason for the difference: and when disputes three generations, no two would agree toarose, to save the Collector trouble, a reference ether. Rarely, indeed, can any trace be folto a previous register would too often decide father of the existing race but after having lowed beyond the grandfather or great-grand who was to possess the land, without reflecting numbered all that can be considered descenthat it was some accidental circumstance or perhaps a bribe to a native revenue officer, which dants of the farthest back whose name can be had caused that individual to be rated as the discovered, in most villages there are many owner of the land in the first instance. As others of the same tribe as the disputants, and Holt Mackenzie observed in his minute of who undoubtedly are descended from October 1st, 1830-" A strange, arbitrary, and stock, though at a more remote period. Many unreasonable force being given to the mere of these have for generations held portions of record at settlements, made in confessed land. Why should not their rights be recog ignorance, the revenue authorities held them-nized? Yet in many instances they were absoselves bound by their own acts to maintain lutely dispossessed.

the

men of straw and paper as renters." The It is in the execution of decrees, when an principle of decision on the other hand attempt is made to cause the sale of landed usually adopted by the judicial officers, property, that the confusion to which all the would, were it fully enforced regarding every tenures have been brought, is most strikingly sharer in an estate, effect a complete revolu- forced into notice. Under the apprehension tion in the whole tenures. One man who as I believe that the revenue might possibly be well as his father before him had worked as in danger, the Judges were never allowed to labourers, would suddenly be declared proprie-attach for sale land paying rent: they must tor of a couple of hundred biggahs, without do it through the Collector, and the process is possessing any agricultural cattle or imple- to send to the latter to enquire what is the ments or the means or credit to procure them: debtor's portion of landed property, and after another would be brought from a distant part certain forms to desire him to sell it and reof the country and pronounced to be owner mit the proceeds to court for the purpose of of a hundred others would be stripped of being paid to the plaintiff. Now with the

exception of the papers relating to the survey six, or ten times the quantity of land specified lately carried on, and on which I shall say by the Collector, and that it is on the security something presently, the whole of the Persian, of this very possession that he has been able and probably half of the English records in to borrow money. For all this there is no reall the revenue offices in the upper provinces medy; the Collector has pronounced the deare the greatest mass of trash and misstate- fendant to possess only so much, and only so ments that ever were collected together. Not much can be sold; the Judge is not allowed to one atom of real information could be collect-interfere, not even when the report rests solely ed from it at all. I speak advisedly. Most of on the statement of the putwaree, who for a the Collectors pretend to have made minute small bribe will declare a defendant's share to enquiries, into rights, titles, possession and be one-tenth of what it really is, that but a other points of this nature, and to have form- small portion of his land may be sold in satised accurate registers of the result; this has faction of the decree. been going on for thirty years or more, yet Then again the mode of stating what a man's there does not exist one single officer, English share of an estate is, is most vague: it is not or native, connected with the reven e depart-given in biggahs, but on biswahs, biswansees, ment, who of himself and from his records &c.; and when after a world of trouble, so much alone, without making enquiries for the ex-land, or rather so many biswahs, &c. are sold, press purpose in each case, could point out no man knows what is sold, or where it is the land which belonged to any single indi-situated; what portion of the groves or tanks vidual in the country. of the village belong to that share; and the

In proof of what is above asserted, I will consequence of this loose mode of proceeding give a few specimens of the replies very comare according as the creditor's or the debtor's monly received from Collectors when enqui- family may be the more rich or powerful. In ries are made as to the amount of the landed the former instance the debtor's family will property belonging to a debtor. Very often stop the sale by paying the demand of the the answer is that a man's name is entered in creditor, in order to prevent his becoming the the books as proprietor of a certain quantity Purchaser of the land, by which in one way or of land; but that it is not all his, as there are other they would be subject to much annoyseveral others entitled to shares: but the resance and loss. In the second case the debtor's pective portions of these have never been in- family threaten all intending purchasers with vestigated. In other cases the Collector retheir ill will, and thereby prevent the land ports that having successively called on the Collectors of the sales not having been effectbeing sold: the numbers of reports from the office record-keeper, tuhseeldar, and kanoongo, none of whom could give any information, forthcoming is quite surprizing; and thus the ed, in consequence of no purchasers being a reference was made to the putwaree, who states defendant to possess so much. In poor plaintiffs are defrauded of their money. one instance the information from the Col-It is very different when a Collector seizes lector's office was that one of the defen-oods for sale to realize some Government dants, Jeewun, had a share, but he could and summary, nor is he very scrupulous whebalance: he can then be sufficiently active not say how much. The putwaree's report ther he has seized the right person's property or was that Jeewun possessed a quarter of a not. If others unconnected with the defaulter biswah, the other defendants none at all; claim a portion of what is attached, the system while the kanoongo states that Jeewun possesses two biswahs, and Dhunnoo, another de- too often is, sell it first, realize the Governfendant in the same suit, one. In another the ment balance, and so keep up your own chaCollector reports the defendant to possess no racter: leave these people to get justice as land; the kanoongo assigns him a portion. they can. I beg to assure my readers that I Precisely the same as this occurred over and have known many of such proceedings. Inover again. The Collectors often, indeed deed, to show the arbitrary nature of some of the Collectors' orders, a case was lately brought generally, call for a report as to the share of the individual's land, from their own officers, to the notice of the superior court, in which the tuhseeldar and kanoongo, and receive one of these officers had reversed a decree of replies as to the amount of the share, each differ- the civil court given twenty-six years preing from the other. It never seems to strike viously and turned the old proprietor out of them how utterly incorrect and useless their his estate, because he had taken some personrecords and registers must be when such is the case; indeed, so little do they appear to think After such proceedings have been carried about it, that they usually forward all the re- on for more than thirty years, it is no wonder ports to the Judge: I wonder they have not that landed tenures have been brought into the nous to send him one, and keep the others such confusion that no one could make a title. safe in their own office. Then again after the Within these four months a district judge reCollector has reported a defendant to possess ported officially to the superior Court, that in so much land, (some very small portion) repeat- his Court landed property had almost ceased edly the plaintiff has come forward in the to be accepted or even offered as security: Judge's Court, declaring that to be a complete merely because he required two very simple false statement, and offering to prove before conditions-first, that the person offering himany Commission which should be sent to the self as security, should state plainly the num village, that the defendant and his father ber of biggahs he possessed-secondly, that before him had possessed and cultivated four, on a summary inquiry in his village, his claim

al dislike to him.

should not be disputed. There are few men forms a map of the estate, with all its groves, in the whole of the Upper Provinces who tanks, roads, and other principal points: he could comply with these conditions. Is not also marks the cultivated, culturable, and this a melancholy state for a country to have waste land. After him comes the native surbeen reduced to? and still more lamentable is it veyor who fills in the detail of the different that it has been effected not by any necessity, fields. This is of course not done with any but by the ignorance and inattention of technical exactness, but having the surveyor's successive English functionaries. In the map for the basis, it is sufficiently correct to words of Holt Mackenzie's minute before enable any person to know which field is quoted, "Instead of taking the people as meant in the event of any dispute or suit. I they existed, we forced them into all incon- believe every field is numbered, but whether the gruous positions to meet inapplicable laws; names of the respective owners or occupiers and their properties were necessarily thrown have yet been fully ascertained, I am not into a state of indescribable confusion, from quite certain. It is, however, intended to do a system of revenue management* conducted so. The Board of Revenue, with the sanction without judicial investigation, and of judicial of Government, have followed this up by audecision without revenue knowledge.' thorizing a settlement for twenty years, on terms calculated to leave a fair share of profit But it may be asked where was the fault? to the cultivator. Any thing like a Ryutwhat ought to have been done? Simply this, war settlement is as much as possible instead of following our own absurd ideas, avoided; and what is more than all, Collectors and enacting laws totally unsuited to the are prohibited from enquiring into any claim people, we should have enquired what their to land unless the dispossession have occurcustoms were; we should then have discovered red within a year, all others are referred to the that in disputes regarding land between Civil court. This last rule has given more members of the same village, the abstract law satisfaction to the people, than can readily be of inheritance never was in the least regarded conceived; while the native officials are either by any native tribunal, or any native lamenting the sad diminution of their golden arbitrators. Unless in the case of posses- harvest, which has been thereby caused. sion acquired by force, and that too but recently, actual possession invariably formed the grounds of the decision of the above authorities before the country was acquired by the British. I have known some Judges who were perfectly aware of this, and have occasionally heard one after giving a decision of the usual nature, observe that he was quite alive to the injustice he was causing, but that he could not help it; and that if he were to give a really just decision, founded on the customs of the people, not only would it be reversed, and the abstract law reverted to, but he might probably receive a reprimand from the superior court with whom all law was gospel.

One more step is now required under this head; to be guided by the native customs, throwing aside the incubus of abstract law, which never was followed in the matter under discussion, until introduced by us; to take actual possession as the basis of a law, and declare that no man shall be ousted by any thing but a decree of a Civil court, some minor provisions would be required regarding the preferring of suits. When any portion only of an estate were claimed, the plaintiff should be required to state his demand not by biswahs, biswansees, &c. but by the actual number of biggahs he sued for; and to accompany his petition of plaint by a map, copied from that in the Collector's office, Matters have at length however arrived which for a small fee he would be allowed to at such a pass, that something should be procure, showing the actual portion of land done, and that speedily, to rescue the landed for which he sued, including groves, tanks, tenures from the anomalous and incom- streams, &c. if any; and the boundaries of prehensible state to which they have been the same, with the names of the owners of reduced. Government have however made those lands which bordered on the litigated one great step. For the last year and a half a portion. A Judge would then understand his surveyor and junior revenue officer have been ground in a suit regarding land, which is employed in each district, precisely on the rarely the case at present. The requisition of plan recommended in No. 18, which was such particulars would doubtless prevent published in July 1833. The revenue officer many suits from being prefered-frivolous ascertains the boundary of each estate, and where it is disputed he is authorized to oblige the parties to appoint arbitrators by whom the matter is immediately settled, and whose award is final. The surveyor then

* More properly mis-management.

demands having scarce a shadow of foundation; but they would not in the least deter those whose claims rested on good grounds. Finally, as soon as completed the new settlement should be declared perpetual; but this has been so often urged in these papers that I shall say no more about it.

+ The only danger is that when two or three insulated cases of injustice in the settlement of the boundary shall have been discovered--and such will to a certainty occur, whatever care may have on account of a particular evil, and appoint a Commission to been taken; for in some cases the young revenue officer who was revise the whole of the present boundary settlements. Better let the employed on the duty was quite unfit for it-the danger is that Go-insulated injustice stand than put every thing into confusion all vernment will, as they have too often done, enact a general law,' over the Upper Provinces.

D d

The next step is the introduction of a law rations, neither by custom or law can any diviof primogeniture. The system of equal division now take place, but if the lands are to sion of landed and other real property among be divided, what right have these two brothers sons or co-heirs, is the curse of any country in to take half each? Let us go back to the earwhich it obtains; at least of any which con- liest ancestor we can trace, and begin dividtains a large population: in one like America, ing there, continuing the division at every where immense tracts of the richest soil may generation, so that every one of us may obtain be had almost by asking for, the evil may for his share according to the abstract law of the a considerable time be less felt. It effectu- case, if that is to be the rule of practice. ally prevents any family of landed property This is unanswerable, according to the custom from keeping their station in society; in the and law of the Hindoos, and to justice. But course of a few generations, or even of one or I have little doubt that the whole will be distwo, the majority of the members must inevi- regarded, and that according to the abstract tably be reduced to the condition of petty law of the case, the estate will be divided laborers. The law in question has also a con- among the two brothers. This sort of subversiderable tendency to lead to a despotism, sion of all their laws and customs, is probaeither direct, or through the more circuitous bly one of the specimens of the blessings which route of mob rule, and the rise of some mili- the British-Indian Government have confertary dictator. The great want that has been red on the people of India. felt in the British-Indian administration, is that of a respectable body of landed proprie- There is another strange anomaly in the tors as a link between the rulers and the peo-succession to property among the natives. ple. Liberty and equality are very desire- By the law a man cannot bequeath his property able, but it is not the equality of poverty of any description by will, to one son to the which is beneficial to a country: a country prejudice of the others, and a suit by one son can no more thrive, whatever may be said by for a whole estate (such are sometimes though absurd theorists about every man with his cot- rarely preferred) founded on the will, would tage and his acre of ground, without a due be dismissed either in a native or a British gradation of ranks of society, than a regiment court-be the parties Hindoos or Mahometans. could be kept in order, with only the field-of-Yet in practice a man of either class can sell ficers. When the mass of the people have little more than a bare subsistence, no hope can be entertained of education or improvement: the whole will be little higher in the scale of rationality than animals.

or give the whole of his property, real or personal, ancestral or acquired, to whomsoever he pleases. It may be seized and sold for arrears of revenue due to Government-or by a creditor-and hundreds of cases could be quoted from both the natives and British Courts to prove the truth of this, and that these customs have been always upheld. What then becomes of the law of entail which is implied in the prohibition to devise property by will to one of several co-heirs to the exclusion of the others? How easy is it for a man to evade the law, by giving his property before his death (taking care to comply with the legal enactments regarding gifts of property) to the son whom he wishes to succeed him: or by means of a convenient friend he may make up a pretended sale to the latter, who some time after will do the same to the owner's son.

Such a law as is proposed would be no hardship to the people; for strange as my readers may think it, the rule of primogeniture, was in practice among them, until we" forced them into all incongruous positions to meet inapplicable laws" far more common than the abstract law of equal division. Wherever the title of rajah, or nuwab* (prince) was attached to an estate, it always descended unbroken to the eldest son. This was often the case with those which had the title of thakoor (chieftain). The former have been supported by the English, the latter very rarely. Not far from where I write a suit is now proceeding. A thakoor died, leaving two sons by two wives. The mother of the younger son has instigated The contradiction which exists between the him to demand half the estate. Now, in the law and practice are anomalous and absurd to first place, it is notorious that from time im a degree; the litigation, fraud, and roguery to memorial the lands have descended undi- which they give rise is immense; the gradual vided to the eldest, as can be proved by thou-and inevitable reduction of all landed prosands of the most respectable witnesses: and in the second all the other relations, uncles, and cousins to the twentieth degree, protest against the right of the younger son to claim a share; they say our ancestors gave up their rights to support the dignity of the chieftain, and as this has continued for several gene

prietors to the situations of paupers-all these are circumstances which should induce a serious consideration of the propriety of altering the law on this head; more especially when we view the matter in another light. What will, what must be, the result of all this? Where is it to end? If one person can with ease, cultivate and comfortably live and bring up his family on the produce of twenty biggahs, what will be the state of his sons or grandsons? The chief revenue of the British

*This is not only Hindoo law, but has been supported in some decisions by the Sudder Dewanee; though I cannot at this moment quote the cases.

Indian Government is derived from a direct [ations and immediate enjoyment will weigh tax upon the land; how will this be realized much more, than that of benefit to others. when each cultivator possess land just suffi-This consideration may allay the fears cient to support existence? contracts, bonds, of those who imagine that a law of primoand laws, for punishment will be all in vain, geniture would create over-grown estates, each man will sow his crop, cut it, and eat it and raise up too great and too powerful an to attempt to prevent this will require an aristocracy. It will be long continued before army of revenue officers nearly as numerous as such a thing could happen in India, nor could the cultivators themselves; and as for realiz-it happen in any country, provided entails were ing balances, all that will be left for Govern-prohibited: land, indeed, has been so subdiment will be to seize each man's covering of vided that every encouragement should be given coarse cloth, and his few earthen pots. To to consolidate the different portions into large sell his land would be useless, it would not or moderate farms, so as to allow a field for fetch above a few pence and the purchaser attempting improvements, and to prevent as would do just the same. This may not hap-much as possible its re-division. It is lamentpen in our time, and may be retarted or able in India to see the gradual impoverishaccelerated by accidental circumstances, but ment of the old families, the ruin of their the ultimate result is as inevitable as the residences, and the absence of any middle decay of a tree after it has passed its full class to whom the peasants might look for exgrowth. ample and assistance in times of difficulty and trouble: for the principle of divisions of In some countries the members of a family property has been carried to a much greater are found to enter in agreements among them-pitch under the British Indian Government selves to obviate the evil of such a law; nor than under any native power.*

is such an occurrence unknown. In Jersey

and Guernsey where equal division exists, When we consider the limited extent, the laws are made with a view of obviating the small population, and the great and unparal evils which are practically experienced.* lelled prosperity and power of England, it is Little, however, can be expected from private arrangements, or patchwork laws, which do not strike at the root of the evil; inasmuch as with the majority of people selfish consider

In Jersey and Guernsey, the law awards two-thirds to the sons,

one-third to the daughters, and the islands are described as covered

with pretty little farm houses, and contented families live on their fifty or sixty acres each-to such has it already come. This is very romantic and charming. Next generation will see them living in small cottages working hard to cultivate each family its ten or 15 acres, with little or no education. In the third we shall find them living in hovels each with its three or four acres, slaving like horses, with scarce food to eat or clothes to cover them, and with about as much knowledge as the cattle that draw their ploughs, to the great delight of the cottage and acre visionaries. It may per

haps take five or six generations, if their families are very small, to arrive at this pitch of degradation; but with such customs it is their inevitable fate. But they have a law, which I believe exists also in France, that if the eldest son can pay the value of the other's shares, he may take the whole; it is however rare that the eldest

son has the means of doing this. The law was expressly made to prevent the too great splitting of estates. There cannot be stronger

proof that the people themselves perceive the evil principle of their system of equal division, by their having enacted a law expressly intended to counteract it. If their old custom be really

good, why make a law to check it? and if it be bad why not go to the root of the evil at once? They cannot unfortunately

"Facilis descensus Averni

Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras:
Hoc opus-hic labor est."

No nation in which this infernal custom of equal division of landed property has for sometime existed will ever relinquish it, unless forced to do so by a power which they have no means of resisting, such as a foreign conqueror or military dictator. The reason is simply that the majority of people prefer present ease and comfort to the general benefit of their country: and the younger sons must `always be a much more numerous body than the elder ones. But by the law I propose for India a man may leave his estate to any son he pleases.

obvious that there must have been some principle at work to have produced this; and I believe if properly analyzed, it would be found attributable more to the law of primo. geniture than to any other cause. The effects have been that younger sons instead of being contented with moderate temporary comfort, with the prospect of leaving their sons or grandsons in a situation little above day-laborers, have been obliged to go forth into the world, and struggle for their own livelihood; and some of them have founded families more wealthy than that from which they originally sprung. Others being endowed with a moderate life income, have remained single, devoting themselves to literary pursuits; and the heads of the families have in succeeding generations often acquired such influence over their tenantry, that they have been often able to counteract the instigations of the factious and evil-disposed. It is not unfrequently urged in England that the majority of eldest sons knowing that they must succeed to the estate, prefer amusement to study in their

The only benefit which I allow that the English Government has given to the people of India,-freedom from foreign invasion, has here proved an injury. Formerly one or two sons would get knocked on the head in some battle, and the estate would descend unbroken to one; so that those who were left lived pretty comfortably. Now there are no battles, they all live; but they are half. starved. I have often heard them condemn the present and praise the old system.