Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎467r] (58/238)

The Progress of the Municipal Idea in India. 271
easiest plan to let out the right to collect that revenue some
times to the highest bidder, and at others to some Court
favourite or other person with whom he could make the
best terms. This person within his own particular range
followed suit and got the most he could out of it in order
to maintain his own position or fill his own coffers. It
was a matter of indifference to him how or under what
system of administration the revenue was collected, and the
less trouble and expense he was put to in realizing it, the
better. The leading man or men in each village or group
of villages that formed, according to hereditary custom, the
unit of collection modified or maintained their ancient
usages with the consent or acquiescence of those who
assisted in making up the revenue, for they were as a
rule mere pari inter pares, and contributed each his share
towards the general fund required, not scrupling on occasion
to sell or mortgage for the purpose land from which pay
ment to the State was due, to take possession of the best
land for their own purposes, or redistribute it as appeared
most convenient or best for the common benefit, or hold it
in common. Each village as a rule had its own artisans,
its carpenter, its blacksmith, its potter, and others, its
village priest and its astrologer, and was thus self-contained.
Its own police, paid by the enjoyment of rent-free land
within its own borders, kept internal order, petty crimes
being dealt with by the heads of the community (the Mukh
or Mukhi Patels), and all more serious offences by the
Sir-subhd or other officer of the Central Government. This
state of affairs tended to disintegrate itself. As the com
munications of the country were opened up, and the inhabi
tants of such isolated and self-contained villages began
through more continued intercourse with their neighbours to
acquire wider connections, that cohesion which had held
them together and enabled them to combine in order to
further common village interests became gradually loosened,
and each individual began to stand on his own feet. This
state of matters necessitated the introduction of Government