DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.24890#0064
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should be dealt with not as robberies or dab cities (which
no doubt they technically were), requiring a lengthy proce-
dure, but as theft, which admitted of being summarily tried
and punished in the presence of the whole body of labourers.
These instructions also provided for the immediate recoupment
of his losses to the grain-dealer from tines imposed on all the
gangs concerned. After a few cases of plunder of grain shops
on relief works had been dealt with in this way, the trouble
completely ceased: and so universally orderly were the relief
workers that, as has already been stated, it was found unneces-
sary to increase the police force of the Provinces by a single
constable to preserve order among them or to guard the
treasure chest. Order was preserved through the people them-
selves.
Such were the conditions of distress and of relief which
prevailed at the close of 1896. A very rajoid expansion of
numbers characterized the last fortnight of the year. The
figures for the end of November have been given above; the
opening of the new year saw 496,879 in receipt of relief. The
great bulk of these were workers and their dependants, repre-
senting over four-fifths of the whole. Less than one-tenth were
relieved in poorhouses and fewer still at their own homes.
The area of distress now included 12 districts officially recog-
nised as famine-stricken. Beyond them were 24 more, in
which distress of a varying degree prevailed, and which were
classed as still under observation. In all of these districts
relief measures were in force in the shape of test works or
poorhouses or village relief, or all three together.
The effects of the rainfall of November have already
been fully stated. Though opportune and highly beneficial,
it was not by itself sufficient to secure the crops then in the
ground or being sown. The rainfall of the remaining cold
weather months would have been sufficient to ensure crops
which had been put out under favourable conditions. But it
was inadequate for the wants of a harvest sown in a season of
such deficient moisture that even the sowings were largely
dependent on artificial irrigation, and all crops which were
unirrigated suffered accordingly.
The Meerut, Benares, and Gorakhpur divisions came
off best, and in most of the Oudh districts there was fair average
rain. In all these tracts the winter rain of 1896-97 would
have proved quite adequate under ordinary conditions. Else-
where it may broadly speaking be said that the December and
January rains were sufficient to secure the irrigated crops.
But a general failure of rain in February and March combined
with the effects of a high and continually west wind proved
disastrous to unirrigated fields. The failure was most severe
over the large waterless tracts south and west of the Jumna,
.and fell heavily on all the dry and poor soil in all parts.
should be dealt with not as robberies or dab cities (which
no doubt they technically were), requiring a lengthy proce-
dure, but as theft, which admitted of being summarily tried
and punished in the presence of the whole body of labourers.
These instructions also provided for the immediate recoupment
of his losses to the grain-dealer from tines imposed on all the
gangs concerned. After a few cases of plunder of grain shops
on relief works had been dealt with in this way, the trouble
completely ceased: and so universally orderly were the relief
workers that, as has already been stated, it was found unneces-
sary to increase the police force of the Provinces by a single
constable to preserve order among them or to guard the
treasure chest. Order was preserved through the people them-
selves.
Such were the conditions of distress and of relief which
prevailed at the close of 1896. A very rajoid expansion of
numbers characterized the last fortnight of the year. The
figures for the end of November have been given above; the
opening of the new year saw 496,879 in receipt of relief. The
great bulk of these were workers and their dependants, repre-
senting over four-fifths of the whole. Less than one-tenth were
relieved in poorhouses and fewer still at their own homes.
The area of distress now included 12 districts officially recog-
nised as famine-stricken. Beyond them were 24 more, in
which distress of a varying degree prevailed, and which were
classed as still under observation. In all of these districts
relief measures were in force in the shape of test works or
poorhouses or village relief, or all three together.
The effects of the rainfall of November have already
been fully stated. Though opportune and highly beneficial,
it was not by itself sufficient to secure the crops then in the
ground or being sown. The rainfall of the remaining cold
weather months would have been sufficient to ensure crops
which had been put out under favourable conditions. But it
was inadequate for the wants of a harvest sown in a season of
such deficient moisture that even the sowings were largely
dependent on artificial irrigation, and all crops which were
unirrigated suffered accordingly.
The Meerut, Benares, and Gorakhpur divisions came
off best, and in most of the Oudh districts there was fair average
rain. In all these tracts the winter rain of 1896-97 would
have proved quite adequate under ordinary conditions. Else-
where it may broadly speaking be said that the December and
January rains were sufficient to secure the irrigated crops.
But a general failure of rain in February and March combined
with the effects of a high and continually west wind proved
disastrous to unirrigated fields. The failure was most severe
over the large waterless tracts south and west of the Jumna,
.and fell heavily on all the dry and poor soil in all parts.