40 IMPOVERISHING CAUSES. 



over the field to smooth it. But were the Ryots 

 able to plough and manure their lands properly, the 

 produce, generally speaking, of every field might be 

 double, and thus one-half the land now cultivated 

 might be employed for other produce. What can 

 be expected from wooden ploughs and starved 

 bullocks, the drivers of which know well that 

 whatever exertion they may bestow, benefits them 

 not, further than that any how they obtain a 

 bellyful. All surplus goes to the Sircar;* or the 

 Polemical Priesthood the Brahmins the scourge 

 of India, find means by working on their credulity 

 to deprive them of every rupee which they happen 

 to save ! ! 



Rice and bajri, are consumed by the higher or 

 richer classes, together with four or five kinds of 

 pulse. Of inferior grains a great number exist, but 

 none appear of value as articles of food. The codra 

 is remarkable as causing all the symptoms of diseases 

 induced by some of the most powerful narcotic 

 poisons ; this only happens I believe when the grain 

 has been kept for seven or eight years, and I may 

 remark, the mustard emetic in such cases has the 

 most beneficial effect, 



* Government. 



