143 



a day, or ^ toom of cumbu or ragi or jonna or 1 toom of 

 paddy per month in addition to two meals a day. The 

 labourers are further allowed straw for fodder and for roofing 

 purposes, some land free of rent for cultivation, loans without 

 interest, presents in grain or money on festive occasions, and 

 advance of pay on occasions of marriage or death in addition 

 to other gratuitous help. In the Kdvali taluk, Nellore district, 

 farm-servants are paid 2f seers of paddy or If seers of ragi 

 or cholum daily. Such labourers get — besides gleanings of 

 the threshing ground, which are estimated to amount to 15 

 tooms a year, worth Rs. 24-6-0 to Rs. 30 according as the 

 grain is paddy or ragi and cholam, one cumbli worth Rs. 

 1-8-0, and a pair of slippers. They also take, with the per- 

 mission of their masters, some bundles of hay or straw. The 

 total income is estimated as high as Rs. 60 per annum. In 

 Cuddapah, the yearly wages amount to -^36 Madras measures, 

 or nearly twice the daily ration. 



The wages, above referred to, relate mostly to cases in 

 which the servants employed are of the Sudra castes. Where 

 the degraded castes, such as Pariars and Pullers, are employed, 

 especially in wet cultivation, the wages are considerably 

 lower. These castes were, till 1843, hereditary slaves sold 

 with the land or mortgaged. In Malabar, according to 

 Buchanan, Churmars were, in 1800, the absolute property of 

 their masters and could be employed on any work the masters 

 pleased, the only restriction being that a husband and wife 

 could not be sold separately. Buchanan adds, " The master 

 is considered as bound to give the slave a certain allowance 

 of provisions ; a man or woman, while capable of labour, 

 receives 2 edangallies (equivalent to 1| seers of 80 tolas) of 

 rice in the husk weekly, or two-seventh of the allowance, 

 which I consider as reasonable for persons of all ages included. 

 Children and old persons past labour get one-half only of this 

 pittance, and no allowance is made whatever for infants. 

 This would be totally inadequate to support them ; but the 

 slaves on each estate get one twenty-first part of the gross 

 produce in order to encourage them to care and industry. A 

 male slave annually gets 7 cubits of cloth and a woman 14 

 cubits. They erect for themselves huts that are little better 

 than large baskets." Both Messrs. Buchanan and Warden, 

 the Collector of the district, in the beginning of the century, 

 remark that, owing to ill-treatment and insufficient nourish- 

 ment for generations, the Churmars have become very diminu- 

 tive in si^e. Churmars are no longer slaves, but are treated 

 like other ordinary coolies. They receive 2 seers of 80 tolas 

 of paddy daily when they work for their masters, but when 



