68 Coffee Planting. 



month or more in travelling over India for the 

 sake of prosecuting him ; the delinquent may, 

 in this case, be ferretted out, but even then this 

 is by no means certain. It seems improbable, 

 however, now, that this system of advances will be 

 done away with in our time ; in many cases the 

 Indian ryot is too goor to leave his home without 

 assistance, while he also requires a few rupees to 

 leave behind with his female relatives and parents. 

 The Kangany at least always makes this the ground 

 of his claim for an advance, and without it he will 

 not stir, and this, although he may have a good 

 round sum of his own laid by somewhere, which 

 he could quite as well make use of for the purpose, 

 were he disposed to do so. The explanation, in 

 cases where the borrower has no dishonest inten- 

 tion, is that he wishes to have as much capital at 

 command as possible, since he manages to extort 

 a heavy rate of interest privately for his own benefit 

 from those among whom it is distributed. 



Kanganies commonly receive advances of two, 

 three, and even five hundred rupees in this way, 

 and heavy losses under this heading have often to 

 be written off on the estate books. It must, how- 

 ever, be admitted that these losses are by no means 

 so frequent as might be expected. Sometimes the 

 Kangany is an old hand belonging to the estate, 

 and has proved himself worthy of confidence during 



