massed money in the buying and selling of
grain and oil. The Zemindar may be a man of progress and intelligence,
but many are of this broken down and helpless type.

Holding the lands of the village by hereditary right, by grant,
conquest, or purchase, he collects his rents from the villages through
a small staff of _peons_, or un-official police. The accounts are kept
by another important village functionary--the _putwarrie_, or village
accountant. _Putwarries_ belong to the writer or _Kayasth_ caste. They
are probably as clever, and at the same time as unscrupulous as any
class in India. They manage the most complicated accounts between ryot
and landlord with great skill. Their memories are wonderful, but they
can always forget conveniently. Where ryots are numerous, the
landlord's wants pressing, and frequent calls made on the tenantry for
payment, often made in various kinds of grain and produce, the rates
and prices of which are constantly changing, it is easy to imagine the
complications and intricacies of a _putwarrie's_ account. Each ryot
pretty accurately remembers his own particular indebtedness, but woe to
him if he pays the _putwarrie_ the value of a 'red cent' without taking
a receipt. Certainly there may be a really honest _putwarrie_, but I
very much doubt it. The name stands for chicanery and robbery. On
the one hand the landlord is constantly stirring him up for money,
questioning his accounts, and putting him not unfrequently to actual
bodily coercion. The ryot on the other hand is constantly inventing
excuses, getting up delays, and propounding innumerable reasons why
he cannot pay. He will try to forge receipts, he will get up false
evidence that he has already paid, and the wretched _putwarrie_ needs
all his native and acquired sharpness, to hold his own. But all ryots
are not alike, and when the _putwarrie_ gets hold of some unwary and
ignorant bumpkin whom he can plunder, he _does_ plunder him
systematically. All cowherds are popularly supposed to be cattle
lifters, and a _putwarrie_ after he has got over the stage of infancy,
and has been indoctrinated into all the knavery that his elders can
teach him, is supposed to belong to the highest category of villains. A
popular proverb, much used in Behar, says:--

'Unda poortee, Cowa maro!
Iinnum me, billar:
Bara burris me, Kayashh marige!!
Humesha mara gwar!!'

This is translated thus: 'When the shell is breaking kill the crow, and
the wi