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little, indeed I may say no education whatever ; their 

 food is a few handfuls of rice, it may be wheat OF 

 pulse ; their clothing- covers their nakedness no 

 more. In many parts of the country the substrata 

 of the people hardly know what money is. Their 

 transactions, though nominally regulated by the cir- 

 culating- medium, are almost entirely carried on by 

 barter. They literally have nothing but the land, 

 and their interest in that generally consists only in 

 the right to live on and cultivate it a right, which 

 though indisputable, is often limited by the will of 

 their Zamindar, or what is a more secure tenure, the 

 custom of the country. Their crops however are 

 almost invariably under hypothecation to the money 

 lender of the village, or in remote regions to the no- 

 minal lord of the soil. In the North West, in Oude, 

 the Panjab, and some parts of Central India, the 

 people are better off; but in some parts of the Madras 

 Presidency the condition of the people is not so good. 

 Throughout India generally the raiyit, can seldom 

 call the crop his own. The cities and large towns 

 are, it is quite true, full of busy people well-to-do, rich 

 merchants and opulent bankers, who carry on much 

 trade ; yet, though efforts have, for some time, been 

 made by the Government to improve their condition, 

 by diffusing more widely amongst them the means of 

 obtaining education, the cultivators of the soil, who 

 are legally peasant proprietors, if generally happy 

 and contented, are still as ignorant as they are poor, 

 and live in a state of society little, if at all, removed 



