98 Report on the District of Azimgurh. [Feb. 



is referred to a jury, but even they are often perplexed, and I have 

 known cases where contending parties have agreed to leave the deter- 

 mination of the point to lot. 



42nd. In rent-free lands some neighbouring Zemindar has generally 

 acquired some recognition of his proprietary right from the Maafeedar, 

 either by direct money payment, or by an allowance of land called do- 

 biswee (i. e. equal to two biswas in the beegah, or ten per cent, of the 

 whole area) free from the payment of rent, or by cultivating a large 

 portion of the land on favorable terms. Generally too the Zemindar 

 appropriates to himself the sayer, or spontaneous productions of the 

 land, but all these of course often depend on the relative strength 

 of the Maafeedar and of the claimant of the Zemindarry. 



43rd. In the large co-parcenery villages, intricate questions some- 

 times are raised by the claimants of shares, and it becomes difficult to 

 decide whether a man is a sharer or not. A member of a village 

 community often falls into distress, either because his share is really 

 inadequate to his support, or because he has become impoverished 

 by his own fault, or by misfortune. Under these circumstances he 

 may make over his share to a co-parcener, or let it lie waste. In 

 either case he may leave the village, or continue to reside in it. If he 

 continue to reside in the village, he may still have his share of the 

 sayer, though he have no cultivation. If a partition of waste land 

 attached to a village takes place, he immediately asserts his claim, 

 and if the settling officer were to take the determination on himself, he 

 would find the task no easy one. 



44th. I have thus endeavored to show the probable origin of 

 private proprietary right in the land, and of the forms under which it 

 is found to be at present exercised. I will proceed next to classify 

 these forms, and to point out the principal features which characterize 

 them. 



45th. The proprietary right in the land may rest either in a single 

 individual, or in a community of people. This community may divide 

 amongst themselves the profits of the estate either according to their 

 ancestral shares, or according to some arbitrary rule, having reference 

 to the quantity of land which each member cultivates. Of the two 

 latter tenures the former has been sometimes styled the Zemindarry, 

 the latter the Putteedaree, or Bhyachara. None of these terms have 

 local application. The term Zemindar is generally applied in the 

 district to any one having a proprietary right in the land, whilst 

 Putteedar is restricted to those members of the village community 

 who are not under engagements directly with the Government. The 

 term Bhyachara is not known. 



