Ixxv 



Mr. J. Mackenzie, merchant of Bimlipatam, gives the following 

 account : — " Since the receipt of your communication, however, I have 

 made it my cluty to inquire into the subject as far as my opportunities 

 permitted, and the result of my inquiries leads me to the conclusion 

 that the charge has been greatly exaggerated, and that although the 

 use of torture or coercion in the collection of the revenue cannot be 

 denied, its practice is of very rare occurrence, and not at all of the 

 deep and atrocious nature alleged, and I can confidently state, that 

 if is not had recourse to in order to collect an immoderate kist, or, as 

 some writers in the Athencexan assert, to screw out of the ryot, over 

 and above his kist, a further sum for the benefit of the revenue servants. 

 I am convinced that this charge is quite unfounded at least as regards 

 the district of Vizagapatam. It is not in this way that the revenue 

 servants make money. I believe I can explain wlien torture is made 

 use of. There is a class of ryots known as nadars, (paupers) whom a 

 faulty revenue system has taken out of their proper position and 

 converted into ryots, whereas they were never intended for any other 

 position than that of laborers or servants to Mootabar ryots. Now 

 these nadars are compelled to undertake the cultivation of lands which 

 the Mootabar ryots are not disposed to take up. It is unsafe to make 

 them such advances as would give them the means of well cultivating 

 their lands ; they cannot be trusted ; they are not to be made honest or 

 respectable ; their lands are consequently badly cultivated and their 

 crops scanty, and scanty as they are, they generally endeavour to 

 make away with them and to evade the payment of their kist, as they 

 really live by what they can pilfer. Now it is in such cases that 

 punishment, or, as it is called torture, is had recourse to. The 

 Tahsildar knows that crop has been made away with, and that the ryot 

 has the proceeds concealed on his person ; he refuses to pay. What is 

 the Tahsildar to do ? Sell his property ? He has no tangible property. 

 Send him to jail to be well lodged and fed at the expense of Govern- 

 ment ? He does neither ; he flogs him or coerces him in some other 

 way, and rupee by rupee, anna by anna, drop out of unexpected places. 

 One such case is noised about, and the example serves for a long 

 time. This I believe to be the true statement of the torture used in 

 this district. I need not say that it is difficult to prove. The 

 Tahsildar takes good care that no witnesses who are likely to give 

 evidence against him are present. No laws can eradicate it, it has 

 been the practice of the country from time immemorial ; the natives in 

 general think it all right ; the very nature of the people must first be 

 changed." 



(E.)— T/iC Madras Byot by Mr. H. A. Dalyell in 1866. 



During the ten years preceding 1866, the price of all agricultural 

 produce has nearly doubled, and that consequently the agricultural 

 proprietor was much better off at the beginning of 1866 than he was 

 at the beginning of 1856, and that there was a still greater improve- 

 ment in his position as compai^ed to what it had been in 1846. As 

 nearly the whole of his outgoings, whether for food or wages, are 

 mere deductions from the gross produce of the land as his family 



