not. He had, further, a mercantile advantage in the éclût attending the disbursement of several lacs of rupees of Government money; and, finally, he had my assurance, if his conduct was such as I had reason to expect, that I should not only favourably recommend him, but make him a pecuniary compliment out of any remuneration that Government might be pleased to award me for the service in which I was employed and employed him." The pecuniary compliment, being 5,000 rupees, was offered-but declined. Was not Cursetjee Manackjee, then, here voluntarily acting in his own wrong, admitting that he had a right, with his eyes open? Was this agreement binding on honourable men? if not, was not Capt. Moor deceived in the character of his agent? Had that officer adopted the simple precaution of indorsing on the contract Cursetjee's relinquishment of whatever right he possessed to supply the troops of another presidency with rice, we should have heard nothing more of this transaction; or had that officer referred the question to the Military Board, the immediate controlling authority over the contractor, or to Governor Duncan-there were those belonging to that Board, and about the Governor, as much in his confidence as Capt. Moor, who knew Cursetjee Manackjee better than to trust to any agreement to which he only verbally pledged himself. Upon what principle, then, of fair dealing between individuals, who had confidence in each other, has such an agreement been departed from?" From a hope that though wrong in point of equity, the law would bear him out." Capt. Moor had been too confiding; the contractor saw that he had not legally committed himself. Having made the most of a verbal agreement with Capt. Moor, this native turns to his bond, sealed and signed My deeds upon my head! I crave the law I'll have my bond I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield To Christian intercessors. He applied to Government for redress for a breach of contract; and the following was the resolution: "That the contract entered into with Cursetjee Manackjee was for the supply of rice, doll and ghee for the military department of this presidency, and not for that of Madras; for which this Government acted merely as agents in the purchases of the rice made by Capt. Moor, which, it followed of course, ought to be made on the best terms that the local market and other available means afforded, at the period of the receipt of the commission confidentially committed to the president, and by him to Capt. Moor; without having any connexion with a provision contract respecting a distinct supply that could not, from its nature, have been in contemplation at the period of the engagement with Cursetjee being entered into; of which the said Cursetjee appears, by Capt. Moor's report, to have himself been satisfied at the period when that gentleman employed him to make part of the purchases for the purpose in question, which, he was then informed, was unconnected with his existing contract." Renewing his application, the Advocate-General was consulted, whose opinion was as follows :—“ The question is, whether, by the terms of his agreement with the Company, the contractor has a right to furnish supplies, not only for the military department belonging to Bombay, but also for the army of a different presidency, provided the supplies were issued from this place."-“ On this part of the subject I agree entirely in the sentiments so accurately expressed in the minute of council of the 28th of July 1804. The words of 2 X 2 the the second and eighth clauses of the contract are, no doubt, general; the contractor is to supply whatever rice, &c. may be wanted for the military department, without any words to specify and define the establishment referred to. But, besides the plain intent of the parties, and its being impossible to suppose that the supply of a Madras army was in contemplation of either of them, a reference to the preamble of the contract puts the limitation beyond the possibility of doubt; for it is there said, the contractor is to supply such rice, &c. as may be wanted for the service of the Company's military department at Bombay, by which is clearly meant, the troops belonging to Bombay, and them alone." On that advice the claim for the supply of rice to the Madras troops was rejected, and has been repeatedly so since 1805. The sum of about 43,000 rupees was offered to him on account of issues from the public stores of rice (not purchased of Cursetjee Manackjee) to the military department of Bombay, which ought to have been furnished by him. Cursetjee Manackjee allowed a period of twenty years to pass over without prosecuting his claim. He at length instituted a suit in the Court of Recorder: the decision was confirmatory of that adopted by the Bombay Government. He applied for a new trial, and obtained, under the glorious uncertainty of the law, what the former court had denied to him. Are there not, under such circumstances, just grounds for an appeal to the King in Council? The cause of so great a difference between the contract and the price at which Cursetjee Manackjee supplied this rice is a most important consideration, and seems to have escaped the sagacity of those who conducted and decided this case. Sir A.Wellesley expressly indented for Mangalore or Canara ricea cheap commodity, compared with the description of rice contemplated in the contract, which was Bengal or Vergole. There is a material difference in quality and in price between the two descriptions of rice: the judgment of the court has lost sight of the difference, and awarded for an inferior, the value fixed for a superior article. INDOLENCE. HARK at yonder murmuring rill, Let rude storms augment its store, Thus when life unruffled flows, Free from care and free from woes; Languid ease, we often find, Sows with discontent the mind. Man was never born to be Blest in still serenity; For his spirit and his form Prove he's made to face the storm. N. LAND TENURES OF INDIA. TELINGANA. Less is known concerning the ancient system of tenures in Telingana than of those in any other part of the peninsula; which circumstance is perhaps chiefly' to be ascribed to the long subjection of these provinces to a Mohammedan government. The Bhamanee, Adilshahee, Khootubshahee and Nizamshahee dynasties had firmly established their power in these countries long before they were subdued by the princes of the house of Delhi; the Musulman power, accordingly, endured here long enough to subvert entirely the Hindoo institutions, leaving scarcely a vestige by which they can now be traced. There is little doubt, however, that the tenures of Telingana were originally very similar to those in the southern or Tamil provinces.* In regard to internal constitution, and the community of interest which unites the inhabitants, a Telinga village is precisely the same as one in the Tamil country. Its lands are similarly divided into waste and cultivated; the latter are also subdivided into mauniums, or lands the government tax on which has been alienated; khundregas, or lands on which a portion only of the tax has been alienated; and lands liable to the full tax. The nature of the tax payable on land seems likewise to have varied originally with the nature of the crop. On the maganee, or lands cultivated with a wet crop (i. e. paddy lands), the korog, or government-share of the produce was taken; on the remainder, being the ryot's share, or madepaloo (share of the plough-handle), and on lands with dry crop, or gardens and plantations, a fixed money-rent was generally paid, as in the southern provinces, though sometimes the revenue was rendered in kind. On condition of the due payment of these taxes and the office-meerassy fees, as in the Tamil country, the exclusive right to the hereditary possession and usufruct of the soil in each village seems originally to have been vested in certain classes of Hindoos of Sudra caste, whose descendants are now known by the appellation of cadeems,† or representatives of the ancient inhabitants, and who continue to be the principal cultivators in every village of Telingana. From the distinction still existing between these cadeems and the pyacarry ryots of the Tamil provinces; from the potail mauniums of the Ceded Districts, and those of the head Reddies and Naicks, or Pedda Caupoos, in the northern circars, being often held in shares (like the grama maunium of Tondei Mandalam); from the general resemblance of the village institutions of the two countries; and from the term cawniatchy being employed in Telingana to denote private landed property (though this sort of property is now unknown there); it may be assumed that meerassy, or a very similar tenure, once prevailed throughout the northern districts.‡ Private property in land, however, had ceased to exist long before our acquisition of the country: there has not been discovered a single deed of sale of landed property in any of the provinces throughout Telingana. The cadeems, on the cession of the Telinga provinces to the British Government, were found to be in possession of no other rights than those of the oolcoody pyacarries in the Tamil country. They continued the permanent hereditary farmers of their villages, and so long as the dues were paid, their lands (from the possession of which they could not be ousted), though not saleable, descended from father to son. This hereditary * See p. 170. + Cadeem signifies ancient. For an explanation of the above terms, see the article referred to in the preceding note. right right seems to have been the only distinction remaining between them and the pyacarry ryots: for the public dues had here been raised higher than in any other part of the peninsula.* One-half (in some cases only one-third) of the wet crop; two-thirds (or even one-half) of the dry; and from three-fourths to seveneighths of the garden crop, has been calculated as the nominal share of the ryot; but, in fact, the demand on him was limited only by the supposed extent of his means: his share was often reduced to a fifth, or even a sixth of the produce; and over assessment had every where levelled the cadeem to the condition of the pyacarry. "It does not appear to have been customary," says the Madras Board of Revenue,+"for the cultivators in the northern circars to take the Government portion of the produce at a fixed price. The cadeem inhabitants have seldom been renters of their villages, and a difficulty is now experienced in prevailing on the cadeem inhabitants of the Chicacole estates to rent their villages even for a grain-rent. The public revenue has very generally, and for a long period, been paid through intermediate renters, not only in the havelly lands, but in the zemindarries. These renters take the Government portion of the crop in kind, and make the most of it, paying an equivalent in money to the zemindar or collector, as the case may be." Where the ancient 'system subsisted, each ryot occupied and cultivated the lands which had been ploughed by his fathers, rendering to the Government, or its representative, a portion of the wet crop, and a fixed money tax on the dry and garden lands. But long anterior to the date of British authority, a species of arrangement known in the northern circars by the name of the veesabudy settlement had been introduced, either by some of the great revenueofficers under the native governments, as an improved system of administration, or by the ryots themselves, in order, in some degree, to elude the undefined and oppressive exactions of the Mohammedans. According to this system, a fixed sum of money was assessed on the whole village, for one or more years. A certain number of the most respectable ryots became responsible for this' amount, each for his own separate portion, and all for each other; and the lands were divided by lot, as in the Samadayem villages of the Tamil country; the portion of land, to be occupied by each individual, being determined by the proportion of the rent for which he was answerable. Thus, if ten ryots obtained their village for a certain period at a veesabudy rent of one hundred pagodas, the first binding himself as security for twenty, the second' for forty, and the other eight for five pagodas each; the lands of the village would be divided into ten equal shares, of which the first would be entitled to two shares, the second to four, and each of the others to half a share: from hence the settlement took its name of veesabudy, which implies a villagesettlement by shares in ready money. Owing to the obscurity which prevails in Telingana as to private property in the land, it has happened that the class of actual labourers, which, in the Tamil country, are in a state of bondage, being villeins, attached to the soil, and sold or mortgaged therewith, are here considered free. In Telingana, however, a labourer cannot remove from one village to another, pending engagements which he has not fulfilled; but he is free to make his own terms, and, after performing the engagements into which he voluntarily enters, becomes again the master of his own labour. It is believed, however, that the labourers See Fifth Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons. + Minute 5th January 1818. Selection of Papers, &c. vol. 1, p. 910. This term, in Sanscrit, implies a collective proprietary right. in in Telingana generally remain in the same village, and attached to the same family, from generation to generation. "It is a curious circumstance," as remarked by the Madras Board of Revenue,*“ that in these provinces, where the severe and arbitrary system of the Musulman Government was established at the most early and for the longest period, where consequently the public assessment on the land is the most high, and private property in the soil the most rare and least valuable, the labourer should also be the most free; while his condition is the most abject in those countries (e. g. Malabar and Canara) where the ancient institutions of the Hindoos have been the least disturbed, where the public demand on the soil is the most light, and private property in the land is universal and of the highest value.” When British authority was first introduced into this country, much was necessarily left to the discretion of the different local authorities deputed to take possession, and to regulate each district on its transfer to our possession; but from the uncertainty as to the nature of the rights possessed by the cultivators, and from other causes, the arrangements were various, fluctuating, and ill-defined. At length a regular system of revenue administration was adopted, by the introduction, successively, of the zemindarry, the ryotwar, and the village settlements. * Selection of Papers, vol. i., p. 887 SUTTEES. To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. SIR: I am not aware that any writer upon the custom of voluntary immolation amongst the widows of the Hindoos has noticed, that it is mentioned as a practice sanctioned by the law of India in the time of Alexander the Great, or at least of his successors (about B.C. 300), by Diodorus Siculus in his history, lib. xix. As the incident which leads this author to advert to the fact is not uninteresting, I have extracted the narrative from Rollin's translation of it, in his history, tom. ix. sec. 5. After the battle between Antigonus and Eumenes, the latter obtained permission from the former to bury his dead. During this ceremony, a singular dispute occurred. Among the dead was an Indian officer, who had brought with him his two wives, one of whom he had but recently espoused. The law of India permitted no woman to survive her husband; if she refused to be burned with him on the pile she was for ever dishonoured, and obliged to remain a widow during the rest of her life, not being allowed to be present at sacrifices or any other religious ceremony. The law mentioned only a single wife; here were two, each of whom claimed the preference. The eldest alleged her right from antiquity; the youngest replied that the law itself excluded her rival from the pile, because she was pregnant: and so it was decided. The former retired in grief, bathed in tears, rending her clothes and tearing her hair, as if some great calamity had befallen her; the other, on the contrary, in triumph, attended by a numerous body of relatives and friends, decked in her richest ornaments, as on her wedding day, advanced with firmness to the place of the ceremony. There, after distributing her jewels and trinkets among her relations and friends, and bidding them a last farewell, she was placed upon the pile by her own brother, and expired in the midst of the applause and acclamations of nearly all the spectators: some of them, however, adds the ancient historian, regarded this strange custom as inhuman and barbarous." The fidelity of the details is remarkable. I am, &c. |