ON THE STATISTICS OF DUKHUN. 317 
are, that a cultivator, be he lettered or not, cannot by possibi- 
lity know what he will have to pay the ensuing or even the 
present year, because fixed sums, payable by the village, are 
divisible amongst a varying number of cultivators. Even if 
fixed sums were divisible amongst a fixed number of cultiva- 
tors, the limited progress in arithmetic of the poor people 
would utterly disable them from determining their respective 
fractional shares; for instance, of 4 rupees for skins and 
shoes, 1 rupee for beit,* 43 for ghee, and 1,5, for leaf plates, 
&c. &c. In the whole course of my personal inquiries amongst 
this class for more than six years, I never met with one Koon- 
bee who could or would give me a detail of his assessments or 
their amount; the constant reply was, “The Koolkurnee 
knows.”’ -This very uncertainty of their means and liabilities 
makes men improvident and careless. 
The next evil is, that the Koolkurnee, in apportioning the 
fixed sums, and the Seerusteh Butta, the commutation money 
for grain, for ghee, sugar, pumpkins, &c, &c. is assured of 
impunity in defrauding the cultivators, from their want of habi- 
lity in their accounts, even if they were aware of the value and 
amount of the cesses and the number of persons they were to 
bear upon. It is almost waste of labour to give the cultivator 
a note from government of what he will have to pay, as in nine 
instances out of ten he cannot read it; his expounder is the 
Koolkurnee, or the Koolkurnee’s relations, and they read it 
agreeably to their own calculations. 
_ The above is an exposition of the assessments as they now 
_ bear on the land, which produces 82°30 per cent. of the whole 
revenue. The remaining portions of the revenue, which appear 
in village papers are usually classed under the term Sahyer, 
and are in fact taxes. The two principal heads of Sahyer are 
_ Mohturfa, properly “‘ Arhan,” or taxes on shops, houses, and 
professions ; and Bullooteh. 
Operation of Sahyer Taxes.—An idea of the operation of 
_ these taxes will be formed by the following details from 
_ Wangee, Pergunnah Wangee. 
_ Wanees, or sellers of grain and groceries, from 4 to 
_ 6 rupees a shop; oilman, for one oil-mill in 
aL iss Sal Cara So rae On 6 rupees. 
Beevers, per loom Seed ee. eo. 8 de, 
_ Other tradesmen pay proportional taxes. The threshold 
_ tax is called Oombraputtee, from Oombra, threshold: it is 
" generally a rupee per house. 
j 
y 
4 
: 
a _ At Tellegaon, Pergunnah Paubul, Poona collectorate, the 
* Beit, “a present,” 
