434 



and understand the full rights and advantages of possession; who 

 have enjoyed them, in a degree more or less secure, before the 

 British name was known in India; and who, in consequence of 

 them, have rendered populous and fertile the extensive provinces 

 of Tanjore and Trichinopoly. 



" This class of proprietors are not to be considered as the actual 

 cultivators of the soil; the far greater mass of them till their lands 

 by the means of hired labourers; or by a class of people termed 

 Pullers, (perhaps the same as those called Poolcahs on the Mala- 

 bar coast.) These are of the lowest class, and may be considered as 

 the slaves of the soil. The landed properly of these provinces is 

 divided and subdivided in every possible degree; there are pro- 

 prietors of four thousand acres, of four hundred acres, of forty 

 acres, and of one acre. 



" The occupants and meerassdars, above described, are far 

 from being mere nominal proprietors; they have a clear, ample, 

 and unquestioned proprietor's share; amounting, according to the 

 same authority, to the respectable proportion of twenty-seven per 

 cent of the gross produce; a larger rent than remained to an Eng- 

 lish proprietor of land, who had tythes and land-tax to pay, even 

 before the establishment of the income tax. 



" One hundred and fifty is the whole produce of a fixed por- 

 tion of land, on which the calculation is made; of which eighteen 

 goes to the general charges, and one hundred and thirty-two re- 

 mains to be divided between the government and the proprietor. 

 The government receives 59 m, or fifty-five per cent, and the 

 proprietor 72 AV, or fifty-five per cent. This latter amount is again 

 to be divided between the proprietor and his paragoodic, an iude- 



