ing the plough. By the plough they maintain their wives and children; their fields become ruined if they do not remain there for the whole day; so much so, that because it proves a loss to them if they come home, their wives bring boiled rice and refreshments bound in handkerchiefs to them in the fields, and make them eat that. It proves an entire loss to the ryots to come away from the fields for one day; and at such a time, if they be brought to such a distant part of the zillah by summons, then the labours of the whole year will for nothing. Honored Sir, Honored Sir, do as you think just.
Magistrate. I don't see any reason for that (as advised by Mr. Wood). There seems no necessity for that.
Defendant's Attorney. My Lord, the ryots of no village take the advances of the Indigo Planters with their full consent. The Indigo Planter, accompanied by the Amins and servants, or his Dewan, goes on horse-back to the field, marks off the best pieces of land, and orders the preparation of the Indigo. Then the owner of the land brings the ryots to the Factory, and having made known to them the particulars of the matter, takes their signatures for the advances. The ryots, taking the money in advance, come home with tears in their eyes; and the day on which any of them comes home with the money, his house, becomes filled, as it were, with the tears of persons weeping for the death of a relative or friend. On the payment of the Indigo to the Indigo Planter, even if the latter have something still to pay to the farmers above the sum of the advances as the price of that article, yet they keep it in their Account-books that the farmers have still something to pay. The ryots, when they have once taken the advance, will suffer pain for not less than seven generations. The sorrow which the ryots endure in the preparation of the Indigo is known only to themselves and the Great God, the Preserver of the poor. Whenever some sit
