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one involved in some complication. That the state 

 of society in the greater part of India is of the true 

 archaic type, Mountstuart Elphinstone,in his History 

 of India, has already acquainted the public. A 

 right of occupancy here is not, as Blackstone has 

 supposed, a c kind of transient property in/ It is 

 asserted to be an inalienable right of possession, of 

 which the holder cannot be dispossessed without 

 injustice. A competent expounder of the native 

 feeling- in regard to what they consider their Tiucks 

 or rights, says : 



' The following* is an example of the regard the 

 people have for their rights. In every village there 

 are Mirdhas, who are by profession robbers. Each 

 of these holds 10 to 20 beegahs of land, for which 

 he is expected to prevent others from committing 

 robbery in his village. For the sake of this right 

 to their land, though they are all professional 

 thieves, they sometimes suffer losses ; still they 

 make good robberies committed by others, rather 

 than leave their Hucks over the land. They abstain 

 from committing robberies in each other's village. 

 Here is another remarkable instance, there is one 

 Chiefdom in Bundlekund called Duttia, where there 

 is no regular Police ; yet we hear travellers generally 

 experience no sort of inconvenience on the road, 

 for there the village Police system of the sort above 

 alluded to is in force.* This mode is also observed 



* This primitive system of police, or black mail as it may be 

 called, is by no means confined to native states. In the neigh- 

 EC 2 



