It
was stipulated, moreover, that the rent should be paid not in money but
in kind. It is the system known in India at this day as ryot-rent; the
cultivator undertakes to give the owner a certain fixed quantity yearly
from the produce of the farm, and all that is over belongs to himself.

The structure of the parable in its later stages presupposes a country
in which the central government is paralyzed, and the will of the
strongest has usurped the place of law. With us it requires an exercise
of imagination to conjure up a scene in which these events could
possibly occur; but in those regions such anarchy was not uncommon
then,--is not uncommon now. It is probable that the annals of our own
empire in India could supply some parallel conflicts between the
privileged superiors and the actual cultivators of the soil.

The proprietor, being personally absent from the country, employed
agents to demand his stipulated share of the produce at the proper
season from the tenants in possession. The tenants, presuming on the
distance of the superior, and the difficulty which he must necessarily
encounter in any attempt to enforce his rights, not only refused to
fulfil the conditions of their lease, but also assaulted the messengers
who made the demand; they beat one, and killed another, and stoned a
third. Obviously, they determined from the first to retain the whole
produce of the vineyard for themselves. They do not seem to have laid
their plans with much care: there is more of passion than of policy in
their conduct. It is the ordinary practice of those who break the laws
of God or of man, to grasp madly a present pleasure, and refuse to think
of coming vengeance. Having heard of the treatment which his agents had
received, the proprietor despatched another party more numerous, with
the view probably of overawing the refractory peasants by a display of
strength; but the second mission was as cruelly and contemptuously
rejected as the first. The proprietor, still unwilling to bring matters
to an extremity, adopted next an expedient which he hoped would subdue
the rebellion, without imposing on him the necessity of punishing the
rebels. Keeping out of sight for the moment his rights and his power, he
appealed confidingly to their hereditary reverence for the family of
their chief; he sent his son, and sent him unarmed, unattended.

The conduct of the husbandmen at this point is unintelligible, if you
suppose that the country e