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MARWARREES.

pay his rent, to marry his children, to dig a well, to pay off an old family mortgage, or to go a pilgrimage which he has vowed if a son were born, or his wife recovered from illness, and allows the Marwarree's "account" to run on. He will put down anything in that account. When the period of payment is up, he will take a new bond, wherein all old accumulations are reckoned as ready money. By-and-by the screw will be put on. The account may not be litigated in court, for the Mahratta farmer has a nice sense of honour, and he will voluntarily pay all he can. One thing is certain, he never ceases to pay, and becomes, in point of fact, little better than a serf.

If this exists under the English system, it is much enhanced under any native government. There the Marwarree is master of the situation, and drives a glorious trade. Village communes, distressed by some exaction, go to the Marwarree, tell their tale, and borrow. This leads to assignments upon individual farmers for shares of the general demand, and the Marwarree triumphs. He has not only the whole commune collectively, or perhaps severally, as constituents, but he has the individuals who compose it; and he takes produce, already under confiscation by the civil authority, at his own price. He bargains for more to cover unpaid portions and interest in advance, and his own terms are the hardest which he can extort. In such cases there is no court to appeal to; there is no justice to be had; the Marwarree and the civil authorities are one, and the people are ground accordingly. The Marwarree's only serious enemy in native states, except the Dacoits, is the civil authority. He knows he is watched, and in time comes the screw. It is useless to resist, and he makes the best bargain he can. His clients, perhaps, rejoice that he too has had his turn; but to what purpose? What has been screwed out of the Marwarree, must come back in some shape or other from the people, and does come back in time. 

Once a Marwarree settles and opens a shop, he becomes a fixture. The only thing that can take him away is a great run of luck, and so much money that he can remove to a great city. In such a case he sells the goodwill of his shop to a new comer, and goes away, very probably, amidst the sincere regrets of the people. He may have become kind, and no doubt has been known to do many a good turn to his clients. He has not been always extortionate. He had grown into part of the community; perhaps had sent for his wife, and Marwarree children had been born there. Now he is succeeded by another hungry, lean fellow, like what he was at first, and the same scenes are again enacted. The improvident people must and will borrow, and the usual results ensue. It is curious how these successive waves of Marwarree Bunneas have overspread whole districts and provinces, and how soon men who, in language and in manner, are utterly incomprehensible at first, in time grow together. To the last the original Marwarree splutters out his meaning in broken Mahratta, aided by his own rude patois, in a manner that is