~4 ¥ 
ON THE STATISTICS OF DUKHUN. 265 
In the above'analysis the chief features are the permanent 
and nearly equal proportions of the Shoodruhs or Mahratta 
cultivators and other genuine Mabhrattas, which obtain in the 
different collectorates; the fact being, that three-fourths of 
the population are of that most useful class the Shoodruhs ; 
and it will be seen by the notice on agriculture, how large 
a proportion of them are engaged in tillage. In the Poona 
Collectorate, as might be expected from its having been the 
chief seat of a Brahman government, there is a considerable 
number of Brahmans; every ninth person, in fact, being a 
Brahman. In the other collectorates scarcely one in twenty 
persons is a Brahman. Genuine Rajpoots are little known in 
Dukhun, and I should doubt whether or not the 3: per cent. 
of Rajpoots, in the returns from Khandesh, should be added 
to the Mahratta population ; who, by the bye, have some pre- 
tensions to being descended from the Rajpoots. The propor- 
tion of low casts,* men who are only engaged in vile or discredit- 
able offices by the natives, although otherwise employed by 
the British, does not differ very much in the different collect- 
orates; the increase in the Khandesh collectorate is attri- 
butable to large tracts of the country being inhabited by 
Bheels, who are a low cast; in fact, less than every seventh 
person is a low cast; in Poona about every tenth, and in 
Dharwar about every eighth. The Moosulmans are few in 
number in the Poona and Ahmednuggur Collectorates, not 
being one-twentieth of the population in the first, nor one- 
_ fifteenth in the second; but, in the Dharwar Collectorate they 
displace the Brahmans, and amount to nearly one-eleventh. 
_ Although the Moosulman power has been paramount nearly 
_ throughout all India for centuries, it is believed they have 
never constituted one-fifteenth of the whole population. In the 
abstract of the population returns from the Ahmednuggur Col- 
_lectorate, the casts are not distinguished; but, in a return of 
* 1828, from the city of Ahmednuggur, the Hindoo inhabitants 
are distinguished from the Moosulman; and it is found that 
there is the very unusual proportion of one Moosulman to 3°45 
_ Hindoos, or 29 per cent. of the whole population. This is to 
* The low casts comprise all that part of the Hindoo population which 
cannot claim to be Shoodruhs, such as Mahrs, Dhers, Maangs, shoemakers, 
_skinners; Ramoosees, Beruds, and Bheels. The Mahrs and Dhers are the 
_ Scavengers, the Maangs, executioners; shoemakers and skinners speak for 
_ themselves; the Ramoosees and Beruds are born thieves, or are thieves by 
cast, and they are usually employed for the protection of villages, on the 
principle of setting a thief to catch a thief. The Bheels are supposed to be 
' the aborigines of the countries where they are found. 
