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2 and of fees levied from ryots for permission to-tmake earth salt, to fish in
3 tanks and streams, to collect emery stones, to gather honey, cardamums
4 and other jungle products, or, in some places, to sell the produce
5 of their own lands. The poor wretches even who: eked out a scanty live-
6 lihood by collecting white-ants for food did not escape without a tax for
7 so doing.
8 41. One item of the Puttady revenue de@®erves particular mention.
9 It was an extra tax collected from the ryots as a per-centage upon, not
10 out of, the land revenue they paid to Government. It varied in partis
11 cular Talooks from 1 to 5 Fanams in the Pagoda, or from-ten to fifty
12 per cent. exacted from the ryot in excess of his original rent.
13 42, The seat of Government being in the Ashtagram Division, the
14 Prahara Putties, or Circar Tariff Tables, were nominally more regarded
15 than in the distant Province of Nuggur. There was ‘no rule however
16 compelling the Sayer tenters to abide by the rates set down, and even
17 if there had been, there would still have been more confusion than
18 enough, for the duty on some articles was to be calculated by weight, on
19 others by measurement, on others by number, and on others again by the
20 cart, bullock, ‘ass or cooly load. These modes of computation too were
21 not uniform throughout the Division, but differed in every Talook, and
22 éven in every Cuttay. They were in fact left very much to the caprice
23 of the Chowkadar of thé Cuttay, and were another frais source of ex-
24 tortion and delay.
25 43. Other anomalies consisted in the levying of different rates. from
26 different descriptions of merchants; the lower rates probably having
27 grown into Mamool from having been originally the result of a corrupt
28 arrangement between the renter and the merchant. For instance, salt
29 passed free into the town of Mysore if brought. by one particular class of
30 people, and, in the Bailoor Talook, two bullock loads of sooparee were
31 passed as one load, if carried by Coormurs, Lumbanies or Wuddurs.
32 44, The collusive system by which traffic was attracted to one
33 particular line to the prejudice of others was in forees in the Ashtagram
34 as much as in the Nuggur Division.
35 45. If the Nuggur Division suffered in some respects from its
36 distanc? from the Durbar, Ashtagram was in its turn victimized from its
37 propinquity, for the returns show that there were no fewer than three
38 hundred ‘and thirty-one Cuttays in this Division alone. It is gaid to
39 have been no uncommon thing to-reward a favorite by.the imposition of
40 Q