avy debts, with which an improvident father had left them
encumbered, the moment he attains his majority and enters upon the
management, borrowing three times their annual rent, at an exorbitant
interest, to marry a couple of sisters, at the same rate of outlay in
feasts and fireworks that his grandmother was married with.[5]

Notes:

1. The author's figure of 'eighty millions' was a mere guess, and
probably, even in his time, was much below the mark. The figures of
the census of 1911 are:
Total population of India, excluding
Burma . . . . 301,432,623
Hindus . . . . 217,197,213
The proportions in different provinces vary enormously.

2. See _ante_. Chapter 1, note 3.

3. The word _amoka_ is corrupt, and even Sir George Grierson cannot
suggest a plausible explanation. Can it be a misprint for _anka_, in
the sense of 'stamp'?

4. Akbar levied a tax on marriages, ranging from a single copper coin
(_dam_ = 1/40th of rupee) for poor people to 10 gold mohurs, or about
150 rupees, for high officials. Abul Fazl declares that 'the payment
of this tax is looked upon as auspicious', a statement open to doubt
(Blochmann, transl. _Ain_, vol. i, p. 278). In 1772 Warren Hastings
abolished the marriage fees levied up to that time in Bengal by the
Muhammadan law-officers. But I am disposed to think that a modern
finance minister might reconsider the propriety of imposing a
moderate tax, carefully graduated.

5. Extravagance in marriage expenses is still one of the principal
curses of Indian society. Considerable efforts to secure reform have
been made by various castes during recent years, but, as yet, small
results only have been attained. The editor has seen numerous painful
examples of the wreck of fine estates by young proprietors assuming
the management after a long term of the careful stewardship of the
Court of Wards.

CHAPTER 7

The Purveyance System,

We left Jubbulpore on the morning of the 20th November, 1835, and
came on ten miles to Baghauri. Several of our friends of the 29th
Native Infantry accompanied us this first stage, where they had a
good day's shooting. In 1830 I established here some venders in wood
to save the people from the miseries of the purveyance system; but I
now found that a native collector, soon after I had resigned the
civil charge of the district, and gone to Sagar,[1] in order to
ingratiate himself with the officers and get from them favourable
testimonials, gave two re