132 



II, labourers not connected with land ; III, the professional, 

 mercantile and other classes owning capital other than land ; 

 IV, the artizan classes and small traders. The divisions here 

 referred to have been very roughly made, and, in some 

 instances, they overlap one another. A landlord is often a 

 money-lender or trader, and an artizan frequently owns a 

 piece of land ; and a peasant proprietor ekes out his small 

 income from land by non-agricultural labour, e.g.^ by spin- 

 ning or working on the roads during the non-agricultural 

 season. The prosperity or the reverse of large sections of 

 the population must also re-act on the condition of other 

 classes, for instance, traders prosper when the agricultural 

 classes thrive and so on. Nevertheless, there is a conveni- 

 ence in considering the condition of different sections of the 

 population separately, and the main divisions above given 

 are sufficiently accurate for the purpose in view. For the 

 most recent information regarding the number of persons 

 falling under each of the main divisions, we must wait till 

 the detailed tables connected with the census taken in 3 891 

 are published. I have given in the appendix V.-F. (a) a table 

 extracted from the census report of 1881, showing the num- 

 ber of persons engaged in the several occupations in 1881 as 

 compared with the number in 1871, but, owing to the 

 dissimilar methods adopted in classifying occupations at the 

 two censuses, the results shown cannot be fully relied on. 

 Statistics as regards persons engaged in the several occupa- 

 tions according to the census of 1891 are not yet available. 



58. There is a pretty general impression that in this 

 Presidency land is held in small proper- 

 oiMses. ^^^^'"^^"'^ ties by pauper ryots. There is truth in 

 this, but not to the extent that is often 

 supposed. Out of the 90 millions of acres forming the area 

 of this Presidency, 27-| millions, or between one-third and 

 one-fourth, are held by 849 zemindars; 15 of these zemindars 

 hold 6f million acres, or nearly half a million each, paying to 

 Government a peshcush of 2 lakhs of rupees on an average ; 

 128 zemindars hold 9 J millions of acres and pay to Gov- 

 ernment an average peshcush of 18,100 rupees; and 706 

 zemindars and mittadars hold 2f million acres and pay a 

 peshcush which averages 1,300 rupees. The peshcush of the 

 zemindaris was fixed at two-thirds of the rental in the case 

 of ancient estates, and 90 per cent, of the rental in the 

 case of estates newly created at the time of the permanent 

 settlement. A few large estates, which were held as^ military 

 jaghirs, pay a quit-rent. The rental of all these estates 

 amounts to 161 lakhs of rupees, while the peshctlsh amounts 



