Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official eBook

William Henry Sleeman
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,051 pages of information about Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official.

Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official eBook

William Henry Sleeman
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,051 pages of information about Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official.

11.  No European officer, military or civil, could now venture to adopt such arbitrary measures.  In a Native State they might very probably be enforced.

12.  ‘The magistrate’ was the author himself.

13.  The chief police officer of a town.  In the modern reorganized system he always holds the rank of either Inspector or Sub-Inspector.  Under native governments he was a more important official.

14.  Elichpur (Ilichpur) is in Berar, otherwise known as the Assigned Districts, a territory made over in Lord Dalhousie’s time to British administration in order to defray the cost of the armed force called the Hyderabad Contingent.  Since 1903 Berar has ceased to be a separate province.  It is now merely a Division attached to the Central Provinces.  From the same date the Hyderabad Contingent lost its separate existence, being redistributed and merged in the Indian Army.

15.  Political Economy was for many years a compulsory subject for the selected candidates for the Civil Service of India; but since 1892 its study has been optional.

16.  The census of 1911 shows that about 71 per cent. of the 301,000,000 inhabiting India, excluding Burma, are supported by the cultivation of the soil and the care of cattle.  The proportion varies widely in different provinces.

17.  This proposition does not apply fully to Northern India at the present day.  The amount of capital invested is small, although not quite so small as is stated in the text.

18.  The times of harvest vary slightly with the latitude, being later towards the north.  The cold-weather rains of December and January are variable and uncertain, and rarely last more than a few days.  The spring crops depend largely on the heavy dews which occur daring the cold season.

19.  Daring the years which have elapsed since the famine of 1833, great changes have taken place in India, and many of the author’s remarks are only partially applicable to the present time.  The great canals, above all, the wonderful Ganges Canal, have protected immense areas of Northern India from the possibility of absolute famine, and Southern India has also been to a considerable, though less, extent, protected by similar works.  A few new staples, of which potatoes are the most important, have been introduced.  The whole system of distribution has been revolutionized by the development of railways, metalled roads, wheeled vehicles, motors, telegraphs, and navigable canals.  Carriage on the backs of animals, whether bullocks, camels, or donkeys, now plays a very subordinate part in the distribution of agricultural produce.  Prices are, in great measure, dependent on the rates prevailing in Liverpool, Odessa, and Chicago.  Food grains now stand ordinarily at prices which, in the author’s time, would have been reckoned famine rates.  The changes which have taken place in England are too familiar to need comment.

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Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.