The members of the landed aristocracy of Oude always speak with
respect of the administration in our territories, but generally end
with remarking on the cost and uncertainty of the law in civil cases,
and the gradual decay, under its operation, of all the ancient
families. A less and less proportion of the annual produce of their
lands is left to them in our periodical settlements of the land
revenue, while family pride makes them expend the same sums in the
marriage of their children, in religious and other festivals,
personal servants, and hereditary retainers. They fall into balance,
incur heavy debts, and estate after estate is put up to auction, and
the proprietors are reduced to poverty. They say, that four times
more of these families have gone to decay in the half of the
territory made over to us in 1801, than in the half reserved by the
Oude sovereign; and this is, I fear, true. They named the families--I
cannot remember them.
In Oude, the law of primogeniture prevails among all the tallookdars,
or principal landholders; and, to a certain extent, among the middle
class of landholders, of the Rajpoot or any other military class. If
one co-sharer of this class has several sons, his eldest often
inherits all the share he leaves, with all the obligations incident
upon it, of maintaining the rest of the family.
The brothers of Soorujbulee, above named, do not pretend to have any
right of inheritance in the share of the lands he holds; but they
have a prescriptive right to support from him, for themselves and
families, when they require it.
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