[50]. Tax for registering.
[51]. This includes in one word the forced labour exacted from the working classes: the corvée of the French system.
[52]. Grain thrown on the inhabitants at an arbitrary rate; often resorted to at Kotah, where the regent is farmer general.
[53]. Grain, the property of the government, thrown on the inhabitants for purchase at an arbitrary valuation.
[54]. The handful from each sheaf at harvest.
[55]. A day sacred to the Hindu, being that which divides the month.
[56]. Meaning, they shall not irrigate the fields.
[57]. This part of the edict is evidently the instigation of the Jains, to prevent the destruction of life, though only that of insects.
[58]. The cause of this sumptuary edict was a benevolent motive, and to prevent the expenses on these occasions falling too heavily on the poorer classes. It was customary for the women to carry away under their petticoats (ghaghra) sufficient sweetmeats for several days’ consumption. The great Jai Singh of Amber had an ordinance restricting the number of guests to fifty-one on these occasions, and prohibited to all but the four wealthy classes the use of sugar-candy: the others were confined to the use of molasses and brown sugar. To the lower vassals and the cultivators these feasts were limited to the coarser fare; to juar flour, greens and oil. A dyer who on the Holi feasted his friends with sweetmeats of fine sugar and scattered about balls made of brown sugar, was fined five thousand rupees for setting so pernicious an example. The sadh, or marriage present, from the bridegroom to the bride’s father, was limited to fifty-one rupees. The great sums previously paid on this score were preventives of matrimony. Many other wholesome regulations of a much more important kind, especially those for the suppression of infanticide, were instituted by this prince.
[59]. ‘Defence against the cold weather’ (si). This in the ancient French régime came under the denomination of “Albergie ou Hébergement, un droit royal. Par exemple, ce ne fut qu’après le règne de Saint Louis, et moyennant finances, que les habitans de Paris et de Corbeil s’affranchirent, les premiers de fournir au roi et à sa suite de bons oreillers et d’excellens lits de plumes, tant qu’il séjournait dans leur ville, et les seconds de le régaler quand il[il] passait par leur bourg.”