Under the term Eastern Bengal may also be included the Chittagong division. The material Chittagong. condition of the people of Chittagong is said to be very prosperous. The residents are mostly agriculturists, and even day-laborers, domestic servants, &c., have their patch of land, which is cultivated by themselves or their families. That they are well off is manifested by their independence, and the fact that it is sometimes difficult to get labourers even at a fair rate of wages.

The soil is productive, and yields an ample return to very little labour. Bamboos, canes, thatching grass, and firewood, are plentiful, and on unoccupied waste lands may be had for the cutting. Provisions are abundant and generally cheap. The neighbouring province of Arracan affords a remunerative field for the surplus labour of the division, where coolies working can earn, it is said, as much as eight annas a day. The condition of the people has certainly improved of late years. The introduction of English piece-goods has made the price of their clothes cheaper, and they are now better able to pay for them. The houses which used to be built of straw, bamboos, and reed on low marshy land, are now constructed on well-raised lands, and of better and more durable materials. The number of utensils in domestic use is much larger than formerly, and there is much more comfort. The cost of living has increased, but the people are better off. Nearly every one has an acre or so of land in cultivation.

Patna.

The local officers, on the other hand, all report strongly of the poverty of the ryots in the Patna division, and it is beyond doubt that the people there are really badly off. Late years have not been bad, and food has been comparatively cheap. But it is a good deal dearer than it formerly was, and the wages of labour are still very low. Except during the harvest and planting seasons, the rate of unskilled labour is only one and a half annas per diem. Although Gya and Shahabad have an apparent smaller population rate than elsewhere, they have so much of barren hill tracts that in the well-populated area they are practically no doubt just as overcrowded as those districts which show a larger rate. In Gya it is said that the agricultural labourer is worse off than anywhere else in the division. He is generally paid in grain and lives really from hand to mouth. Two or three seers of some coarse grain, representing a money value perhaps of 1 anna, suffice him to support life and enable him to work. With the Soane work however close at hand, and two annas a day to be earned there, there is a brighter side to the question. The zemindars of this division, especially the smaller landholders, are stated to be oppressive on their tenants. On the larger estates the system of farming out villages widely prevails-a system of profit upon profits, under which the cultivators sadly suffer. Happily emigration is a resource well known to, and in some degree practised by, the people. The emigration beyond seas is after all but a drop in the ocean, but there is much unregistered emigration within India. There is a periodic emigration of labourers from the Sarun district who go to Purneah, Julpigoree, Rungpore, and Cooch Behar. It is notorious that all over the country syces, coolies, and men who go out to earn their bread, come in very

large numbers from the Behar districts, and especially Sarun. We may believe that if they are more and more pressed they will go in greater numbers to populate the colonies, &c., to which they already know the way. Many labourers get, it is stated, to the tea districts without ever being registered before the local Magistrates at all. There seems to be a good deal of difference of opinion regarding the general condition of the people of Bhaugulpore. the Bhaugulpore division. In the Bhaugulpore and Monghyr districts the population is large and rents are high; wages, on the other hand, are low-certainly lower than in most districts in Bengal Proper-and very much lower than in the eastern districts. Food also is dearer than in these latter. Wages have risen compared to former times; but so, it is stated, has the price of food. Still the people are for the most part a decidedly industrious people, quiet, simple, and careful. They seem to be content in their small humble way. There is little or no emigration, the small number of emigrants reported being in great part inhabitants of other districts. What emigration does take place is confined to the north-west corner of the division adjoining Tirhoot. In the reports of the eastern districts it is not often said that labourers from Bhaugulpore come to seek for labour. The Magistrate of one district made inquiries during the past cold weather into the condition of the ryot on the frontier territory, and the result is discouraging, in that after very fairly weighing the respective advantages and disadvantages of both, he comes to the conclusion that the condition of the Nepaul ryot is on the whole better than that of the British ryot. Although the smaller rent taken from the former by the Nepaulese Government is supplemented by forced labour and the purveyance system, on the other hand the illegal cesses and exactions of zemindars, middlemen, &c., and other vexations, turn the scale against the British cultivator. In Purneah, however, where the population is much more sparse, it is probably a correct statement that the people are better off than elsewhere in the division. They suffer a good deal from fever and from the ravages of the river Koosee; but those who escape these evils are perhaps in their means above the average of the ryots of these provinces.

The people of the Sonthal Pergunnahs are a simple and improvident race. They had in the past earned easily a poor living, and spent their little easily, so long as they had plenty of land, light rents, and little interference in their own jungly country. But since they have been invaded by grasping speculators and adventurers, and the zemindars by these instruments have begun to levy heavy rents and exactions, the Sonthals have felt distress. The account which is given by the Commissioner of the working of the new regulation and new system is, however, decidedly satisfactory. The people are much in favour of the settlement, and the only alarms that have recently been reported are from the Sonthals outside the Pergunnahs, who not unnaturally agitate for the same advantages as have been accorded there. The Pahareas of the Rajmehal hills emigrate not unfrequently to secure labour. These are the savage Rajmehal hillmen who were reclaimed from robbery, but were long notoriously idle; and it is gratifying to know that they now take so much to labour.

Orissa.

The Lieutenant-Governor believes that nowhere have the rents of a peaceable, industrious, and submissive population been more screwed than in the Bhaugulpore division. It was the same action of the zemindars that was lately leading to rebellion in the Sonthal Pergunnahs. As regards particular zemindari estates, however, where the tenantry belong chiefly to low castes, it is stated that they will leave an estate on the smallest provocation, and it is a comfort that the industrious poor are thus able to go off to another estate when exaction is carried to excess. A marked contrast to the condition of the zemindars' ryots is afforded by the tenantry in the Government ryotwar tract of the Damin-i-koh. Whatever," says the Commissioner, " may stir the minds of the Sonthal population generally, the residents in the Damin are quiet and unmoved. There is no oppression, no levying of cesses and abwabs, the rates of rent are low, and the ryots are well off." In Orissa there is reason to believe that a change for the better is taking place. Vast sums of money have been spent in the country on irrigation works, and but a small proportion of this is carried away; much of it does and must sink into the country. Labour is abundant and is paid for at remunerative rates. Trade has improved; exports and imports increased. A large number of people are better housed, clothed, and fed, and have more home comforts than formerly. The improvement has probably affected the mercantile classes more than the actual cultivators. Even, however, in remote villages a greater air of comfort may be observed, a better thatch to the houses, and this in Orissa is one of the best signs of improvement, as it is about the first thing an Ooriah ryot does when he gets his head above water. There are more shops in the towns and larger villages and sub-divisional stations, and the shops which fell to ruin during the famine are restored. At the same time the comparative well-doing of the people is somewhat alloyed by the extreme poverty of a large landless labouring class. The Collector of Balasore writes that he has known many cases where a family only ate food once in two days, and no member of the family had more than one garment. It is fortunate that there are now ample facilities of emigration. The extraordinary increase of the passenger traffic between Calcutta and Orissa by sea is a most gratifying sign that the people are more and more learning to help themselves.

Chota Nagpore.

The condition of the Hindoo population of the Chota Nagpore division is said to be tolerable. There are now no more peaceable and loyal subjects in any part of Her Majesty's Indian dominions than in these hill tracts. The disturbances and rebellions of former days have passed into oblivion. The Koles of Singbhoom, who but a few years back were a savage and barbarous population, are now a prosperous people, and their villages are described as often perfect pictures of comfort and prettiness. The ryots, for the most part occupancy men, are not at all dependent on the wealth of their landlords, who do nothing to improve their estates, and leave the ryots to improve their own holdings as best they can. The ryots' condition has no doubt been improved; they have more movable property and more comforts than they had before,

but they declare with truth that if there be improvement, it is entirely owing to their own exertions; and it certainly does not arise from anything their landlords have done for them. On the other hand it must be admitted that although labour is abundant, wages are perhaps lower in Chota Nagpore than almost in any other part of India, and have not risen in proportion to the increase in the price of the ordinary food staples. That the people are on the whole well off, is owing to their freedom from prejudice and local ties, and their industrious disposition, which enables them to go forth from their own country to earn money by labour. The labourers of this division largely emigrate for employment. They pour into all parts of Bengal after their own harvest in December, and return with their modest earnings in May. The tea districts also are mainly recruited with coolies from Chota Nagpore.

There is one sad element in the condition of the people in the Chota Nagpore division. It is stated that in places, in Kharakdea on the one side and in Palamow on the other, a system under which men and even whole families are held as hereditary bondmen is still in full force. Colonel Dalton believes the system to be principally confined to Hindoo or Hindooised tracts, and that the poorer aborigines do not submit to such bondage. The Lieutenant-Governor trusts every exertion will be made to gradually teach the humble people who submit to such a system that they have rights as other men.

Assam.

The concurrent testimony of all seems to show that as a rule the indigenous population of Assam is, judged by an Indian standard, very well off. "The agriculturalists," says the Deputy Commissioner of Nowgong," are really wonderfully well off." "Our ryots," declares the Commissioner, "are much better off, and much more independent, than any class of ryots in the permanently settled districts." Labour is very well paid, food is not dear, and with great abundance of a productive soil, and a sparse population, the Assamese live in comparative comfort, without having to undergo severe toil. The Cacharees are the cream of the population, and are a very fine race indeed.

More than one opinion has been expressed that the indigenous population of Assam is not increasing, and this seems to be the general belief. The cause of this however, if it be a fact, is not so apparent. There is no reason to suppose that the Assamese havereached the advanced stage of civilization in which prudence deters from marriage and checks population; and it seems to be the case that though much opium is consumed, the practice is not carried to such an excess as to have a very ruinous effect on the general population. Moreover, it does not appear that the open and cultivated parts of Assam are specially unhealthy, or that the unhealthiness of the country would account for a complete stagnation or retrogression in population. It has been remarked in the Census chapter of this report that the number of children in Assam is large. In this province, however, where there is a very good indigenous paid agency, and the system of annual settlements gives exceptional means of a knowledge of the country and the people, Government should be in possession of statistics fuller and better than elsewhere; and the Lieutenant-Governor will look both to a careful

working of the specimen areas for vital statistics, as well as to the submission of good and careful returns for the districts generally, to obtain statistics of life which shall truly show the movements of the population and make clear whether it is really so little progressive as is supposed.

But be that as it may, it cannot be expected that the spontaneous progress of population will be particularly rapid, or that the small existing population will multiply so fast as to fill the country speedily. Sir George Campbell thoroughly recognizes that the great want of Assam is population. It seems to be quite beyond doubt that the province once supported a much larger population than at present. The decadence is the result of anarchy and the want of protection against the many wild. border tribes. A commencement has been made towards giving that protection which will soon be complete, and if we can only open sufficient channels for population to flow in to fill the vacuum, the province will unquestionably be developed into a most wealthy and productive one. Already in some few cases the immigrants begin to form permanent Bengali villages, and it is to be hoped that this may increase.

Still it is unfortunately the case that Assam is cut off from the rest of India by long distances and difficult routes. The districts of Eastern Bengal, to which it is nearest, are those in which labour is dearest and population most wanted to gather the rich staples developing there; and for immigration from the districts where the population more presses on the means of subsistence, we must have better means of communication before we can expect that it will be free and voluntary to any large extent. extent. The Brahmaputra, the splendid river of Assam, is deficient in the means of navigation in an extreme degree, and boat traffic above Gowhatty is excessively scarce, while the steam service is very dilatory, and unhappily not unfrequently attended with great loss of life. What is undoubtedly most wanted. is improved communication from the western districts by road, railway, or improved steam services. This subject has been under the separate consideration of the Lieutenant-Governor, who has issued special orders, with the approval of the Government of India, to promote the increasing traffic and communication between Bengal and Behar and Assam. A Civil officer has already been appointed to inquire into the lines of traffic, and an Engineer officer to examine and survey the ground.