cclxxvi 



and is at the same time dunned by his Brahmin creditor whom the 

 proportion of the produce will not allow to satisfy in full. The Brah- 

 min, however, is content with receiving two-thirds of his grain, which 

 will be 116 parahs, and for the remaining one-third or 58 parahs he 

 will exact a new bond from the ryot (who will pass it to avoid a civil 

 prosecution with which his creditor threatens him) promising to pay 

 the value of the grain in a specified month at the latter end of the 

 season (with the same usurious interest as above said) in money at the 

 rate at which grain may be then selling. The price, as I have above 

 mentioned, is about 1^ parahs the fanam. Thus allowing six months' 

 interest, the sum to be paid in lieu of 58 parahs will amount to 47 

 fanams, so that in the course of about ten or twelve months, for the 

 loan of 50 fanams or 75 parahs of paddy, although the ryot has paid 

 116 parahs, he does not return his debt in a greater sum than 3 fanams 

 or 4^ parahs of paddy. Oases of this nature have come before me, 

 when the poor ryot has been driven to the extremity of distress, and at 

 last prosecuted with all the severity imaginable by his avaricious and 

 unrelenting creditor.'^ 



The following particulars have been furnished by the Sub-Kegistrar 

 of Pdlghat as to the nature of usurious money-lending transactions 

 carried on by Moplahs at present : — 



" Usurious transactions of the nature described by Mr. Warden 

 continue to be carried on in Pdlghat and some other parts of the 

 Malabar district. 



" The people taking such loans are agriculturists of very small or 

 almost of no credit who eke out a struggling existence by cultivating 

 other peoples' lands for a season. Mr. Warden's account describes a 

 transaction from the beginning and traces it through two stages. The 

 documents now obtainable in regard to such transactions evidence only 

 a certain stage in the progress of the loan operation and the deficien- 

 cies in them have to be supplied by oral statements. Translations of 

 two subsisting bonds are appended ; of which one marked A evidences 

 a transaction entered into for the first time between the parties and 

 the other marked B relates to a loan in the second stage of its progress 

 and forms the note passed by the debtor to the creditor for the balance 

 found due after a settlement of the account in regard to a loan of 80 

 parahs of paddy made in Edavam (May- June) 1066. The loan in its 

 original stage is stated to have carried interest at 4 parahs for 10 

 parahs a year. In neither of the documents is seen any provision 

 made for interest after default of payment. In all such cases, however, 

 it is a recognized rule to get a stipulation made for the return of the 

 paddy in money when the price of paddy is at a maximum. (In 

 Pdlghat the price of paddy has in these two years ruled at a parah the 

 fanam in the harvest season ; and at the latter end it varied from 5f to 

 6j edangalies the fanam). " 



A, — Document executed by A to B. I have this day borrowed 

 from you in cash Rs. 1 ; and I promise to pay for this amount 35 

 parahs of paddy within the 30th Tulam 1068 (November 1892), at a 

 parah the fanam ; and shall thereupon take back this document, dated 

 the 9th Mithunam, 1067 (July 1892), 



