NORTILITESTER V PROVINCES AVD OUDII. 385 when villages, of which the engagement under native rule had been retained by a riji or tluklir, also supported a family of village proprietors. The relations on which the village proprietors stood to the superior proprietor may have been of three kinds. They may have always collected the whole rents of the village, and paid then sometimes through the superior proprietor, and sometimes direct to the Government official; or they may have always paid them through the superior proprietor and never direct; or while they held large areas of the village in their own occupation, or in that of tenants cultivating under them, the superior proprietor may have realized the rents of the remainder of the village from the cultivators. The rule for the decision of these rights in the North-Western Provinces was that, if the village proprietors had kept alive their title by some species of possession or management over the entire area of their estate, they were entitled to a sub-settlement of the whole of it. In default of this, they must be content with the specific lands over which they had managed to retain the possession or control. In cases where sub-proprietary rights in whole villages existed, it was at the option of the Government to make the settlement either with the superior or with the inferior proprietor. The rule adopted was, that when the two classes were of the same family or class, and mutually willing to maintain the connection, the settlement should be made with the superior proprietor, and the inferior proprietor should pay him the Government demand, with all cesses, and a percentage of not less than 15 per cent. on the Government demand. When an engagement was taken from the inferior proprietor, he paid his revenue and cesses to the Government treasury, and an addition of io per cent. on that demand, which was paid from the treasury to the superior proprietor. In either case, the inferior proprietor had the whole manageinent of the village, and took all the profits that might be derived from it after paying the Government demand and the fixed allowance in favour of the superior proprietor. All persons who have at any time been in proprietary possession of a village, but from any reason lose it, are entitled to retain their sir, or home-farm land, as ex-proprietary tenants, at a rent which is fixed at one-fourth less than the rent paid for similar land in the neighbourhood by tenants-at-will. In Oudh, wherever there were two classes, the settlement was alway's made with the superior proprietor. The inferior proprietor was, if he satisfied certain conditions with regard to his possession of the whole village before annexation, and could prove the enjoyment of a prescribed share of the profits, entitled to retain the management, paying the superior proprietor a certain percentage of the profits, proportional to the profits which he appeared to have enjoyed previously. This was rarely less than 10 per cent., or more than VOL. X. 2 B
