BALASOR.
6
monopoly of the salt manufacture and trade. Meanwhile the English were firmly establishing themselves at Calcutta, and the commerce of Balasor and its importance were gradually transferred to that place. Population The population of the District in 1872 was returned at 770,232, on an area the same as at present, namely 2066 square miles. According to the Census of 1881, it amounted to 945,280, or an .
—
increase of 175,048
(2272 per
cent.)
This large increase
previously.
more apparent than
is
on the enumeration of nine years
not, as in
some
Districts of Bengal,
enumeration in 1872, but is an actual advance of a population recovering during a series of prosperous years from the famine which decimated Orissa in 1866.
The
population
inhabited
in
real,
owing
1881
resided in
houses;
160,799
to defective
average
towns and
6331
density
villages,
of
and
457‘54
population,
per square mile, as against 373 persons per square mile in 1872; number of houses per square mile, 81 ’13 ; number of villages per
square mile, 3'o6
inhabitants
according to sex, there were
Divided
per occupied house, 5 '88.
— males, 461,461
Classi-
females, 483,819.
according to religion, Hindus numbered 915,792, or 96'8 per Buddhists, cent.; Sikhs, 47; Muhammadans, 23,804 Christians, 815 fied
4; Jew, I ; ‘others,’ 4817. The chief aboriginal tribes in Balasor are the Gonds, who number 6290; and the Bhumijs, 2767. Among the semi-Hinduized aborigines the most numerous tribes are the Pans, of whom there are 48,192 ; the Kandaras, numbering 24,455 ; and the Chamars, or dealers in leather, 8444. The number of persons of high caste
include
119,373 Brahmans and
The Khandaits, who
dayats.
182,948 Khandaits or Khan-
are by far the most
numerous
caste in
the District, are descended from the soldiers of the ancient Rajas of
who
Orissa,
kept up large armies, and partitioned the land on
strictly
These soldiers were of various castes and races, the officers being of good descent, while the lower ranks were filled by men of humble origin. On the establishment of a caste system, they all
military’ tenures.
took rank with the military castes, but the present Khandaits are
for
the most part hardly to be distinguished from ordinary agriculturists.
The number castes
is
of males in Balasor belonging to jrastoral and agricultural
172,200; belonging to artisan castes there are 47,595, includThere are 26,160 Hindus who do not recognise
ing 65,268 weavers.
caste; the great majority of these (23,057) are Vaishnavs. The population of the District is almost entirely rural, the only town containing
more than 5000 inhabitants being Balasor
The
20,265.
itself,
with a population of
only other places in the District worthy of mention are
Bhadrakh, on the high road between Calcutta and Cuttack
Jaleswar,
Company’s factory stations and Soro, on the Calcutta high road, about midway between Balasor and Bhadrakh. The towns and villages are thus classified in or Jellasor, on the Subarnarekhd, formerly one of the
