The line of march of one of these corps is like the road
to the temple of Juggurnaut! When the corps is about to move,
detachments are sent out to seize conveyance of all kinds; and for
one cart required and taken, fifty are seized, and released for a
donation in proportion to their value, the respectability of the
proprietors, and the necessity for their employment at home at the
time. The sums thus extorted by detachments they share with their
officers, or they would never be again sent on such lucrative
service.
It appears that in this part of Oude the people have not for many
years suffered so much from the depredations of the refractory
landholders as in other parts; and that the desolate state of the
district arises chiefly from the other three great evils that afflict
Oude--the rack-renting of the contractors; the divisions they create
and foster among landholders; and the depredations of the troops and
camp-followers who attend them. But the estate has become much
subdivided, and the shareholders from this cause, and the oppression
of the contractors, have become poor and weak; and the neighbouring
landholders of the Janwar and other Rajpoot tribes have taken
advantage of their weakness to seize upon a great many of their best
villages. Out of Kurumpoor, within the last nine years, Anorud Sing,
of Oel, a Janwar Rajpoot, in collusion with local authorities, has
taken twelve; and Umrao Sing, of Mahewa, of the same tribe, has taken
eighteen, making twenty villages from the Kurumpoor division.
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