23 



this period, the soldiery were allowed to pay off their debts at 

 the high valuation. tinder the designation moturpha^ taxes ^■- 

 were levied on all artisans and laborers, and these bore hardest 

 on the poorest classes. 



There were no courts of justice, the settlement of disputes 

 being left entirely to the villagers themselves and the heads of 

 castes and clans. Even in the province of Tanjore, where, 

 owing to its comparative prosperity, it might be supposed 

 that the necessity for regular coiu'ts 'of justice would have 

 been felt, a court was established by the Rajah of Tanjore 

 only about the close of the last century at the suggestion 

 of Rev. Schwartz. Colonel Reade states: "When the district 

 (Salem) was ceded to the Company the Chetties of certain 

 castes, exercising judicial authority over their clients, were in 

 the practice of levying taxes on the pullers, a caste of husband- 

 men, on the five castes of artisans, viz., goldsmiths, black- 

 smiths, carpenters, braziers, and stone-cutters, and on washer- 

 men, barbers, pariahs, chucklers and others. The Chetties 

 likewise exacted fines for murder, theft, adultery, breach of 

 marriage conti-act, also for killing brahmani kites, monkeys, 

 snakes, &c. The Government, in consideration of these pri- 

 vileges, had imposed a tax on the Chetties ; but, conceiving 

 that I and my assistants might administer justice with greater 

 impartiality than the Chetties, their judicial powers were 

 annulled and with them the tax on castes," 



14. The early reports teem with evidence of the extreme 

 poverty of the vast majority of the agricultural classes. Dr. 

 Buchanan states that " the peasantry here as in almost every 

 part of India are miserably poor. One great cause indeed of 

 the poverty of the farmers and the consequent poverty of crops 

 in many parts of India is the custom of forcing land on people 

 who have no means of cultivating it." Grant, in his Survey 

 of the Northern Circars, writes in 1784 that the peasantry, 

 '' in order to carry on the common practices of husbandry 



^^ No less than thirty-five taxes of Coimbatore district were abolished by Major 

 McLeod. These were — (1) tax on potters, (2) Nama and Vibhuti khancha or taxes on 

 those wearing the Namam and sacred ash marks, (3) fees at weekly markets, (4) tax 

 on dye stuifs, (5) on ghee, (6) on tobacco, (7) on heaps of grain, (8) on chunaiu, (S) on 

 taliaries, (10) on nirgantis, (H) on pack-bullock keepers, (12) on dancing girls, (13) on 

 labour maistries, (14) on women committing adultery, (15) rents of lotus leaves, (16) on 

 gardens in backyards and plantations in river banks, (17) on cattle grazing in paddy 

 fields, (18) on young palmyra nuts, (19) on tamarinds, (20) on balapam (pot stomi or soap 

 stone), (21) on betel nuts, (22) tax on the measurement of grain on the sharing system, 

 (23) on offerings at Mahadeveswaramalai, (24) l»^vies for charity, (25) taxes on mamoties 

 (hoes^, (26) on village fees to ^^.llage artisans, (27) on the sale of cattle, (28) on cattle 

 stalls, (29) on water lifts, (30) on fishitjg, (31) on looms, (32) contributions levied by 

 amuldars from ryots whenever there was any deficiency in the amount agreed to be paid 

 by the^latter to Government, (33) contributions levied for the expenses of the Tahsildar, 

 l34) payment of one fanam by each ryot with his first instalment of assessment and 

 (35) plougli tax {vide Coimbatore District Manual). See also appendix B, section II, 

 for a list of the taxes levied and the rates at which thev were assessed, 



