168 



attest its former magnificence, and place in strong relief 

 its present decayed condition as a centre of wealth ; but in 

 point of fact, industrially speaking, the town is not now, 

 probably, in a less flourishing condition than it was ever 

 before. 



A third class, which has increased in numbers, but has 

 lost in individual share of the wealth of the country, consists 

 of the Native bankers, sowkars and banias. Formerly, 

 there was no security for property except in the capital 

 cities and their vicinity, and all the wealth was found con- 

 centrated there. A few men, who were in favour with the 

 chiefs, monopolised all the banking business of the country, 

 issued bills of exchange (or hundis), and cashed them, and 

 thus made colossal fortunes like the " Navakoti Naraina 

 Chetti " of the Hindu tales. Their association with the 

 ruling chiefs, whose necessities they fed, gave them immense 

 power, and though they were themselves sometimes plundered, 

 as for instance, when Hyder levied a contribution of 70 

 lakhs of rupees from the bankers of Mysore, they had great 

 opportunities of enriching themselves by altering the rates 

 of exchange for coins, of which large numbers were current. 

 According to Mr. Grant (1787), Zemindars and others had 

 to offer as security " teeps " or promissory notes of sowkars, 

 or other moneyed men, for about two-thirds of the revenue 

 of the tracts of country farmed out by Government to them. 

 Mr. White, a member of the Council of the Governor of Fort 

 St. George, in 1793, mentions that, by the low value fixed on 

 copper currency and the tricks of the sowkars in altering 

 the rate of exchange, the poor cultivators were defrauded of 

 a great part of the wages of their daily labour, that the shroffs 

 used to raise or lower, in a few days, by combination, the 

 rates of exchange by 10 or 15 per cent., and that the evil 

 had operated, in a material degree, to depopulate the country 

 during the famine which had then occurred.'^ The account 

 given by Tavernier as to the rates of discount on bills of 



''^ Mr. Warden, the Collector of Malabar, mentions a curious arrangement about 

 the farming of kaas (copper coins) which was in force at Palghat in 1801. He says, 

 " The person farming the coinage fixes his own particular stamp upon the new kaas, 

 which he intends coining and circulating for the period of his lease which is limited 

 to one year. The introduction of the new kaas takes place in the Malabar month of 

 Chingum (part of August and September), at which time it is sold for 22 kaas the 

 Veray fanam, and continues at this price till the month of Makaram (January and 

 Februarj'), in which month, there being a fair in one of the villages of the country (at 

 which an immense concourse of people assemble), the farmer attends it with his kaas 

 and disposes of tliem at the rate of 24 to the fanam, after which the price decreases 

 in proportion to the demand there might be in the bazaar, till the latter end of 

 Khumbum (beginning of March), in which month another fair happens, when the 

 farmer disposes of his kaas at 26 or 28 the fanam. The sale or exchange'of kaas, after 

 the conclusion of this fair, becomes free and common to all, and the new and old kaas 



