120 THE LICENSE OR PERMIT SYSTEM. 



to the Accounts 0£&ce to be compared with this latter. Besides 

 this advantage of the double foil, the possession of only one part 

 by a man inside the forest is proof positive of attempted fraud, 

 as this part is meant only to enable him to pass on his produce 

 to market or to his house, and to protect it as long as it remains 

 with him. The check can of course be nearly as complete even 

 when only a single foil is used, for the foil can be cancelled by 

 means of some mark or endorsement as soon as the produce has 

 left the forest ; but the double foil license is absolutely simpler to 

 work, and in the present illiterate condition of the country folk 

 and forest guards is also much more practical. 



The amount of money paid for the license may be written on it, 

 but illiterate purchasers are liable to be defrauded thereby, and in 

 case of collusion between the vending and checking establishments, 

 the forest revenue may suffer, as there is nothing easier than to 

 enter different quantities and sums on foil and counterfoil, the 

 counterfoil, in order to render detection more difficult, being 

 written up only after the produce has been removed and the foil 

 recovered and destroyed. It is, therefore, safest to indicate the 

 value paid and received by means of colours and some readily 

 recognized symbols impressed on the license or of adhesive labels 

 resembling postage stamps affixed to it. In the case of different 

 colours and symbols being employed, each license will possess an 

 unchangeable value, whereas by means of adhesive labels it can 

 be made to bear any value. This latter mode of denoting value 

 is evidently much the better one. The stamps can be cancelled at 

 once by the vendor, either in the same way as postage stamps, 

 or by being punched through like court-fee stamps and railway 

 tickets. Characteristic marks or letters can be similarly punched 

 through at each check station or in each beat passed or traversed 

 by the purchaser, thus denoting at once the route which he has 

 followed and the extent to which he was under surveillance. 



In the beginning of the system the vendors were also members 

 of the checking establishment. In many places this is still the 

 case ; but a great improvement effected in many others has been 

 to authorize selected village headmen and patwaris to sell the 

 licenses under the supervision of Forest Officers of and above the 

 rank of Ranger, so that the people need never have to go far 

 for a license, and the revenue is collected, as it should be, by men 

 entirely distinct and removed from the protective establishment. 



The license or permit system is an excellent one to adopt for 

 small produce where the demand is comparatively light and there 

 are no regular dealers and no near markets. The consumers being 



