their love of adventure, that these men risk discovery over and over again rather than desist. Our friend told us he had been in the jug already for snatching.' Not much damage is done to the salmon by spearing now-a-days, or by 'burning the water,' thanks to the vigilance of the keepers, and the commercial value which the fisheries represent in the eyes of their masters; but undoubtedly many are knocked on the head when spawning, utterly out of condition, and useless save to those who will eat almost anything if it be called salmon. There are multitudes of country louts, farmers' boys, &c., who, if they can only evade the watchers, will slay the poor defenceless creatures for the mere sake of killing. It is not until he has successfully overpast all these perils that the salmon's life is sought by the angler. He meets him on equal terms, gives him a chance for life, and is frequently worsted in the conflict. Were the interests of the angler the only ones to be considered, so small is the havoc that he does to the ranks of salmon, that legislation need not have extended to the fish at all. It is of course mainly for the netters, for the commercial issues at stake, that the long list of enactments which culminate in the Act of 1861 have been passed. Fondly as it was supposed that after twelve years of acquiescence salmon fishers would remain contented, last session saw an appendix passed in the Statute of 1873. This Salmon Act allows the adoption of different seasons on different rivers in England, should the Fishery Commissioners and the Home Office think it in any case advisable. It is encouraging to know that the opening days of this season in February 1874 continue the flourishing accounts of abundance of salmon received last year. The main ends which the honest angler has in view when he drops his silver doctor' lightly over a likely pool are health, exercise, and distraction from mental work. Love of conquering difficulties, and circumventing a strong and wary fish, also comes in, as it does in all angling; but base economic or commercial views are altogether absent from his thoughts. Far from wishing to sell the springer' that has furnished him with half an hour's excitement, or even to hang up its stuffed caricature in his hall, he would rather confer on it an apotheosis. He cares not to follow its fortunes when once gaffed, but will frequently recur to its capture under blue skies amidst rushing streams in future day-dreams, during the languor of a protracted debate or the enforced leisure of a committee room. Then will his prize shine, transfigured before memory's fond gaze into dimensions more ample than the reality, and tints of grey and silver more gorgeous than ever shone on the magical fishes of the Arabian Nights, till at length fancy etherealises his captives: nec morti esse locum sed viva volare Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere cœlo. In accordance with the timehonoured custom of most angling essays, we should now descend from the stars to the kitchen, and give directions for the cookery suitable to such a prize; but this would be profanation after the last flight of fancy. Besides, has not the successful fisherman Horace's Catius to fall back upon in ancient days; Barker, Lord Montagu's celebrated angling cook, in the seventeenth century; and the author of Salmonia himself in modern times, if he wants culinary hints? Leaving Dr. Kitchener's domain, let us hasten in conclusion to console those enthusiasts who would give half they possess to enjoy the privilege of fishing for salmon, by assuring them that in many respects, if they have the opportunity of trout fishing, their happy lot excels the salmon fisher's. If his sport be almost heroic, demanding thews and endurance of no ordinary kind, calling out every energy of body and mind, the trout fisher's occupation is idyllic, and sacred to grateful peace. Primrose meadows and whitethorn hedges, beneath which violets love to nestle, are his lot; haunts of studious leisure and meditative activity, where largeeyed cows browse contentedly, and the cuckoo sings of coming summer from the tree tops. Is this a felicity to be despised in these bustling days of express trains, school-boards, and cheap telegrams? No 'man' need dog his footsteps here, if the angler carries (as every trout fisher ought to do) his own landing net; no village scandal is dropped into his ears when most intent on Nature's spring-tide harmo nies. The salmon fisher must have his gilly, and often his boatman; and their attendance, and the whisky they carry, is fatal, we always feel, to the thorough enjoyment of an gling. For angling often means dreaming, with a true disciple of Walton, and who would care to have his finest day-dreams imperilled by valetaille? As for trout fishers, the Muses are their unseen companions, and Nature their only love: Frondibus et victu pascuntur simplicis herbæ, Pocula sunt fontes liquidi, atque exercita cursu Flumina, nec somnos abrumpit cura salubres. IT THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE. T was explained in our last paper how the British Government, on assuming the reins of power in India, found a system prevailing, sanctioned by immemorial antiquity, by which the money required for carrying on the business of the State was raised in great part by direct and heavy taxation of the land. It was shown that the British Government, in accepting this system of revenue, remodelled it, regulating and equalising its pressure, and, by limiting its demand to a fair and known amount, created a species of property in land which had been unknown, and indeed impossible, under native rulers. It was also pointed out that in the hurried and imperfect manner in which the permanent settlement had been executed in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, great and wide-spread evil had been done by the policy pursued by the British Government of contracting with great landowners, called 'Zemindars' or 'Talooqdars,' in perpetuity, while these persons were laid under no corresponding restrictions against raising the rents of the inferior landholders and tenants, whose claims to consideration were at least equally great with theirs. A few words in explanation of the chief Indian land tenures must here be premised. The permanent settlement of Bengal by Lord Cornwallis was at first extolled without measure as an act alike just and beneficent. Very few years, however, elapsed before its radical evils too plainly appeared. Sagacious men like Warren Hastings had in vain urged the need of more thorough study of native institu The tions before pledging ourselves to a measure at once irrevocable and fraught with such vast importance. Troubles now began to thicken. We had overlooked the rights of the inferior proprietors, of the village communities, and of the hereditary cultivators, and these classes were not slow to resent our neglect as soon as they began to feel its consequences. The great proprietors began to find it impossible to realise their rents. To all pressure the villagers simply opposed that terrible vis inertia, the power of which none knows better than the Hindoo. They simply would not pay. great landowners became in their turn overwhelmed; for the necessities of the State knew no pause, and the British Government insisted-was indeed compelled to insist-on punctual payment of the stipulated revenue on the fixed quarter-day. To secure this punctuality it had one weapon-a short but effective one-the sale law. Under its provisions estate after estate in Bengal fell under the auctioneer's hammer for the proprietor's default in payment of the land tax. At last a law (VII., 1799) was passed for the relief of the zemindars in Bengal, by which they were enabled summarily to realise their dues from defaulting sub-proprietors or tenants. This law turned the balance against the latter to such an extent that the Government, both at home and in India, was soon deluged with petitions, remonstrances, and applications for redress from the aggriev ed parties and their sympathisers. The experience of the permanent settlement in Bengal, dearly bought These great proprietors, called 'Zemindars' in Bengal Proper, correspond to the Talooqdars of Oudh and of the North-West Provinces. as it was, nevertheless proved of infinite utility for the best interests of the rest of India. It had been intended to extend the permanent settlement to Bombay and Madras, and indeed, to a small extent, it was introduced into the latter Presidency. The Government had also announced its intention to carry it into effect in the recently-acquired North-Western Provinces. But by the year 1811 the Court of Directors had come to a fuller understanding of the grave error of its policy, and peremptorily forbade any future settlements to be effected in perpetuity. In Madras, Sir Thomas Munro, on grounds that some authorities have considered inadequate, induced the Court of Directors to reject the system of village settlements' as unsuited to the habits and circumstances of the people of that Presidency, and in 1820 the so-called ryotwarry settlement was declared to be generally adopted, and every village that had not already been settled in perpetuity was brought under that system. The peculiarity of this latter management is that the Government deals not only with each ryot or cultivator, but assesses the land tax on each field. In Bombay the same general agricultural conditions prevailed as we had found existing in the widely distant provinces which had earlier fallen under our sway. At first our revenue measures were tentative and cautious. Each year the collectors settled, according to circumstances, what each village had to pay. By-and-by, ryotwar settlements similar to those of Madras were pretty generally adopted. In the south of Bombay, since 1847, the revenue has been collected on a modified system, being a settlement for thirty years, on very low terms, calculated on an assessment fixed on each separate field. In the North-West Provinces, as we have previously related, the socalled village system' was adopted as the basis of our revenue operations, and it must be confessed with results which have been ultimately in the highest degree successful. In the commencement of our administration of the NorthWest we had borrowed much from the Bengal system, and among other things the destructive 'sale law.' Much confusion and ignorance still existed among the governors, much suffering among the governed. An Act was at last passed (VII. 1822) which, starting on right principles, and pursuing a right method, in great measure effected the end at which it was wisely aimed. This law has been justly termed 2 'the Magna Charta of the village communities.' force of its provisions and those of Lord William Bentinck's supplementary Act (IX. 1833), power was given and machinery devised to elicit facts, to investigate claims of title to land or interests in land, and to complete and correct the existing records. By We now propose to show how the functions of the revenue authorities in Bengal, at first purely fiscal, developed in course of time into those of a strictly judicial character. When the work of fixing the Government demand on the land had been commenced, it early became apparent that some system of recording and registering the results from time to time obtained was absolutely indispensable. This necessity was as urgent for the protection of the rights of the Government as of those of individuals. How, for instance, was the collector to proceed in cases of default of payment by those who had engaged to pay the yearly revenue demandable for a particular estate? How was he to apportion the quota 2 By Mr. C. Raikes in his interesting and graphic Hints on the North-West Provinces. of deficiency among the several defaulters? How was he to proceed in the event of his being compelled to enforce the sale of the estate? It was essentially necessary that he should be able to specify with exactitude the land on which the arrear had accrued, and the names of the proprietors in whose default the estate was to be sold. In the event of the death of a proprietor, whose name was he in future to record as owner of the estate? The briefest outline of the system adopted in the Bengal Presidency must here suffice. The registration of landed property had attracted great attention even so early as 1793, since which date various laws have been passed on the same subject, as its importance became more fully understood. Two sets of registers of landed property are maintained. The distinctive feature of the one-that is, of the Malgoozari (= revenue) register-is that the basis of registration in it is the proprietor or body of proprietors. The other register, called the Pargannah (or hundred) register, is formed on the geographical basis that is, village by village. In the one all the land is grouped according to its ownership-in the other according to its situation in certain subdivisions called Pargannahs (the nearest English word to which may perhaps be hundred). In the collectors' record rooms the enormous mass of manuscripts anent revenue which have accumulated and are constantly accumulating are arranged on the simplest plan. Each set of papers respecting any case is indexed, numbered, and folded together. Such a set is called a 'record.' All the 'records' of a village are kept together, and are briefly dated in an open fly index bearing the name of that village. As many packets of records as will form a bundle of about two feet square are then tied up in a piece of white cloth. On this bundle the name of the pargannah (hundred) is written in large letters, and also the letters of the alphabet which begin the . names of the villages contained in that bundle. This bundle is then placed in the record room on a shelf in an open rack something like a gigantic bookcase. The same plan is adopted with the records of the whole district; and as the bundles themselves (like their contents) are arranged in alphabetical order, the record of every case in any village is instantly obtainable. A general index for each pargannah is kept in a folio book, in which each village has a separate sheet. The date of the final order of each case is noted in this book on the page belonging to the village in which the case occurred. As this general index is subdivided into headings showing the dif ferent kinds of cases having reference to land, the amount and character of litigation that has gone on in a village can be seen at a glance. If a particular record should be missing, a reference to this index will show whether a case decided on such and such a date was ever received in the Record Office. The collector's record room not only contains documents belonging properly to his own department (viz. revenue), but by special enactment copies of all decrees of the civil courts (as contradistinguished from the courts of the revenue authorities) regarding land must also be lodged in the same place, which is, therefore, the general depository of nearly all information concerning landed property. It will doubtless have been understood that the records of which we have been speaking are entirely in the vernacular. There are also certain English records, which are regularly (and necessarily) kept up; but to these, which are comparatively few in number, we are not now referring. |