132 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



people, and capable of being regulated by the police, without 

 forcing temptation in the way of the less provident classes. 

 The hcenses for this restricted number of shops were let by 

 pubhc auction. Now came a just retribution on the whole 

 race of Kulars. There were far more of them engaged in 

 the liquor-trade than were required to man these shops; 

 all were wealthy and reckless, and also jealous of each other ; 

 and so a strong competition for the hcenses set in among 

 them. Fabulous sums were bid at the auctions in many 

 cases ; and everywhere the price of Hquor was so forced up 

 by this and the heavy still-head duty that the poorer classes 

 could no longer afiord to drink it in excessive quantity. 

 Sales thus diminished, while the expenses of a shop were 

 largely increased ; and the result was the almost universal 

 ruin of the Kiilars, and the complete breaking up of their 

 system of traffic. The gold ornaments they had flaunted 

 to the world gradually disappeared, and many of them 

 ended in utter bankruptcy. It may, perhaps, be regretted 

 that a less sudden and seemingly oppressive method of 

 curing the canker that was eating into the frontier society 

 did not suggest itself ; but it is difficult to pity so vicious 

 and unscrupulous a tribe as these Kulars. Though the 

 consumption of hquor has fallen off immensely, the state 

 revenue has not suffered, the avowed object of getting " the 

 maximum of revenue with the minimum of consumption " 

 being fuUy attained. 



The complement to this overhauling of the excise law 

 was the introduction of our system of forest conservation. 

 So large a subject, regarding which so httle knowledge 

 existed, could not be expected to be dealt with in an entirely 

 satisfactory manner all at once. Some mistakes were made, 

 the chief of such being to attempt too much on a sudden, 

 and with insiifficient means. The management of aU our 

 immense tracts of waste was thrown upon one or two officers, 

 who had not yet even explored the country, and had nothing 

 besides to guide them, and who were expected to administer 

 a code of rules in detail, throughout this area, which was 

 afterwards found to be much too strict, and to bear very 

 hardly on the people. It could not be done; and tMngs 

 came, ere long, to a dead lock, till solved by the rules them- 



