SALT, ABKARI AND MISCILLANEOUS REVENUE
the actual shop-keepers and still-owners in the hills, especially in the Párvatípur and Pálkonda Agencies, are usually immigrants of the Sondi caste, a wily class who know exactly how to take advantage of the sin which doth so easily beset the hill man and to wheedle from him, in exchange for the strong drink which he cannot do without, his ready money, his little possessions, his crops, and finally his land itself. Statistics of the arrack rentals for the last decade in the Koraput division exhibit a marked increase and go to show either that the shops were sold for much less than their value in former years or, perhaps, that drinking there is more prevalent than it was; but in the Párvatípur Agency it is stated that extended communications and contact with the outer world are gradually teaching the hill people restraint in this matter, and that even the Chaitra Saturnalia (see p. 72) shows signs of decreasing in vehemence.
Outside the agency tracts, abkári administration usually consisted at first in dividing the country into farms and selling by auction the right to collect the arrack and the toddy revenue in them. The two were kept quite distinct and were sold separately. From 1830-31 to 1860-61 the receipts were almost stationary, fluctuating between Rs. 60,000 and Rs. 67,000; in 1868-69 they rose to a lakh ; and in the next year the farms sold for as much as Rs. 1,71,000. This, however, was more than they were worth, and several of the purchasers went bankrupt in consequence.
In 1872 the excise system (under which the revenue is collected in the form of a duty, levied at the distillery, on every gallon of liquor issued for consumption) was introduced in the case of arrack for a term of three years. Mr. Minchin of Aska in Ganjám undertook the supply of the liquor, and sent that required for the Gunupur and Ráyagada Agencies (which were included with the plain taluks) by road through Chicacole, and supplied the rest of the district through Bimlipatam, whither the liquor was brought down by sea. His contract included also the monopoly of the manufacture and sale of toddy, but he was allowed to sub-rent this on condition of paying to Government three-quarters of the sum for which he leased it. An attempt was at first made to give the Aska liquor, which was distilled from jaggery, the peculiar flavour popular in this district by mingling with it a little rice arrack; but this did not meet the public taste and eventually it became necessary to mix with it as much as a fourth part of rice spirit. Even then, this arrack was never as popular as that made in the country stills, and on this
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