by the Nerbudda Coal
and Iron Company; and is now worked by the G. I. P. Railway Company.
The principal coal-field of the Central Provinces for some years was
that near Warora in the Chanda district, but the amount which can be
extracted profitably is approaching exhaustion; in fact the colliery
was closed in 1906. Thick seams are known to exist to the south of
Chanda near the Wardha river. See _I. G._, 1907, vol. iii, chap. iii,
p. 135; vol. x. p. 51.

9. See note to Chapter 25, _ante_, note 7.

10. 'Pickpockets' is not a suitable term.

11. The Persian word 'doab' means the tract of land between two
rivers, which ultimately meet. The upper doab referred to in the text
lies between the Ganges and the Jumna.

12. These 'colonies of thieves and robbers' are still the despair of
the Indian administrator. They are known to Anglo-Indian law as
'criminal tribes', and a special Act has been passed for their
regulation. The principle of that Act is police supervision,
exercised by means of visits of inspection, and the issue of
passports. The Act has been applied from time to time to various
tribes, but has in every case failed. In 1891, Sir Auckland Colvin,
then Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, adopted the
strong measure of suddenly capturing many hundreds of Sansias, a
troublesome criminal tribe, in the Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, and Aligarh
Districts. Some of the prisoners were sent to a special jail, or
reformatory, called a 'settlement', at Sultanpur in Oudh, and the
others were drafted off to various landlords' estates. These latter
were supposed to devote themselves to agriculture. The editor, as
Magistrate of Muzaffarnagar, effected the capture of more than seven
hundred Sansias in that district, and dispatched them in accordance
with orders. As most people expected, the agricultural pupils
promptly absconded. Multitudes of Sansias in the Panjab and elsewhere
remained unaffected by the raid, which could not have any permanent
effect. The milder expedient of settling and nursing a large colony,
organized in villages, of another criminal tribe, the Bawarias
(Boureahs), was also tried many years ago in the same district of
Muzaffarnagar. The people settled readily enough, and reclaimed a
considerable area of waste land, but were not in the least degree
reformed. At the beginning of the cold season, in October or
November, most of the able-bodied men annually leave the villages,
and remain absent on d