CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, AND NEWS.

JAPANESE ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE AND ART.

Of the many ideas that have been borrowed from Western sources, that of preparing daily papers, magazines, and other general literature for the public is already conspicuous in Japan. Where the two extremes of East and West meet, as in the case of the magazine the Fuzoku Gaho, our attention is drawn towards the efforts that have been made to form an interesting addition to literature and art.

Between Japan and European countries at first no copyright existed. Restrictions bearing on this important subject have already been considered, and came into force with other graver jurisprudential conditions in A.D. 1899.

The Fuzoku Gahō, for example, an illustrated magazine of Japanese life, is a modern press publication, comparatively speaking, in its infancy. It is a hybrid between ancient and recent work, of which many examples are now issued to the Japanese public. The system upon which it is "got up" shows that although Western ideas have been accepted, in many respects the original manner of making books is still studied. The titlepage and frontispiece will be found at the end of the journal, and the pages number, according to our idea, backwards. The text is given in usual Oriental style, running half-way down the page from top to bottom, commencing from the right-hand side. All matter for reading, either explanations of pictures, news, advertisements, and so forth, is printed in Chinese characters, with the exception of the last page, which is in Japanese.

The illustrations show the influence of Western ideas. The Fuzoku Gaho is profusely illustrated in various ways-double-paged pictures confined to single subjects, or made up of many sketches, as we find them in our weekly numbers of the Graphic, the Queen, etc. This system is most frequently resorted to where several classes of the community are engaged in the same occupation, or when the old and new version of existing things are set off against each other by way of contrast. Single-paged pictures in black and white or colours, and also small sketches interspersed in the text, are comprised within the covers of this monthly. The Fuzoku Gahō embraces a variety of subjects of historic worth and present interest ancient manners and customs that are rapidly disappearing, such as the secret forging of swords, the cutting of stone implements, the celebration of old-established festivals, down to the latest incidents in Corea and Formosa, thus insuring many readers by the wide range of subjects it embraces.

Occasionally advertisements of English goods appear in a cloud of Chinese ideographs, for instance, the figure of an English watch, printed on coloured paper to arrest attention; and Japanese articles of manufacture are recommended in the same European method.

Owing to the use of Chinese ideographs, in which most printed matter

is given, the editing of a journal or newspaper in Japan is no light task. Mr. Henry Norman tells us that the staff employed on a "daily" amounts to nearly a hundred and fifty persons.

As the Japanese equivalent for the Chinese characters employed requires to be kept continually in the ears of those who pick out the ideographs for the printer, the press-room is one murmur of sing-song from the lips of the boys whose business it is to hunt out the types from the tall cases that line the walls. The sounds must be uttered or they cannot be recognised among the many thousand types that need be overlooked for the compilation of an ordinary printed book. The lower classes in Japan cannot understand their journals unless they can read them aloud.

Too much credit must not be placed as yet upon daily intelligence. If news that will interest the public is not to be gained through the day's events, it must be forthcoming from the brains of the reporters. The absence of a general telegraphic system, or any other quick way of disseminating news from one town to another, renders reliable information difficult to collect at a given time. Besides, editors must not give too much to the public, and the large staff necessary is partly owing to indiscretions of this kind. There must always be one or more editors to spare. If injudicious liberality of information has enforced the temporary residence of an editor in a place of silence, safety, and police supervision, another must be ready to take up the work.

The pictures of the Fuzoku Gaho will interest those who have not been fortunate enough to have paid Japan a visit. The introduction of Western hats, umbrellas, boots, shoes, and other garments which take the fancy of Orientals, will be seen to show up conspicuously in the midst of native surroundings. The magazine gives an insight into Japanese home-life, pastimes and amusements, peculiar street trades, performances, scenes of national interest, and other items of life as it exists in the Far East.

The illustration of two authors writing on the old and new system brings vividly before us the change customs have undergone of late. It is a pity that the perfection of manliness, feminine beauty, and all other human attractions, is so lightly regarded by some of the greatest artists the world. has produced. Life, vigour, movement, idealism of line, and all other essentials which lend value to works of art, declare themselves. But the mind tells, through the interpretation of the brush, how little the beauty of Divine modelling of the human form has appealed to the Asiatic. It is not due to defective talent, but simply to the influence of religious and moral training instilled through a thousand generations.

C. M. SALWEY, M.J.S.

LAND TENURES OF GUJARAT AND WESTERN INDIA. SIR,

As my name has been brought rather prominently forward by Mr. Baden-Powell in his article on the "Political Tenures of Gujarat and Western India," published in your number of last July, I think it as well to supplement some of the information he has given, and to correct a few

slight errors he has fallen into from inexperience of Bombay revenue matters. Why he should have called the tenures "Political" I do not understand, for they are no more due to political, as distinguished from ordinary, administrative origins than other tenures, all, or nearly all, mention of which has been omitted in the course of his remarks. Such are the Narvádári in Kaira (Khedá), the Bhágdári in Broach (Bharúch), and the Khoti in the Southern Koukan: the former two of these are distinctly coparcenary, derived from a common ancestor or ancestors, or partly so, and partly associate through adventitious circumstances; and the last estates, held originally by mere farmers of State revenues, have in time become hereditary so as to constitute a permanent tenure.

He says of the Talukdári, Mevási, and Udhaḍjamabandi estates that they are apparently recorded separately because the Government revenue is assessed differently in each; but the real reason of their distinct recognition as tenures lies in their difference of origin. The first and the last were, in fact, the same in olden days, and held by the same classes of Rajput overlords; and the difference in the methods of their assessment, that of the Udhadjamabandi estates remaining still at the same figures as before the advent of British rule, while those of the Talukdári estates have varied in the manner stated, has arisen from the simple fact of the former being situated in what was formerly called the Eastern Zillah, north of the Mhye (Máhi river), and the latter in the Western Zillah. In the former village accountants were not appointed, and the rentals remained the same in the latter they were, and the different method of assessment which has led to their degradation and ruin were adopted. The Mevási owe the difference in their treatment to the fear the Mogul and Mahrátha rulers of olden days had of meddling with a race of Kolis, who would have resented it turbulently, as the Rajputs in the more settled parts of the country did not, having become enervated, probably by opium-eating. A full account of how all this came to pass will be found in my "History of the Bombay Land Revenue under the Ahmadabad and Kaira Collectorates," by those who are curious in such matters.

I may here correct an orthographical error in the spelling of the word Maliki, which has probably led Mr. Baden-Powell into a wrong conception of the tenure, as if the word were derived from Malik, an owner. The name is Maleki, and is derived from the name of the Mussulman tribe Malek, to which the original grantees belonged. They were in reality mere Jágirs. The origin and treatment of the Kasbátis are correctly described.

The policy of the Government of Bombay in adhering to the old idea of the proprietary right of the State in all lands is attributed to a desire to possess a locus standi from which to secure the hereditary and transferable occupancy" tenure of the cultivating rayats. This is to credit the authorities of former years with far greater political foresight than is their due; for the rayatvári tenure was simply forced upon them by the state of chaos they found existing, and the disruption of all village ties, as the result of the system of farming out the collection of the State dues under the rule of the Mahrathas. The grant of the right of hereditary and

transferable occupancy to the rayats was a pure act of grace on the introduction of the Revenue Survey. The right is of course granted subject to the liability to the payment of the Government assessment, but that does not constitute the State the owner of the land, as Mr. Baden-Powell endeavours to make out. None but an owner can have a right to mortgage or sell his land, as the rayat has under the Survey Settlements. The State has deliberately made itself a rent-charger, abandoning the proprietary right. No doubt, under an uncivilized and unscrupulous régime the two terms might practically become synonymous, but under British rule the object is to create proprietors who have the full opportunity by law of benefiting themselves and their descendants by making untaxable improvements in their lands, and not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. I accordingly repudiate the assertion that the Government remains the owner.

It is correct to say that the early idea that the Tálukdars were temporary lease-holders had a great influence. The word ta'alluq (s) might give the idea that the estates were in a state of dependence, but I am more inclined to other senses in which the word may equally well be used, such as "holding together" and "property," or even "perpetual lease " (see Johnson's Persian Dictionary). The term "lease" as applied by us in their case is rightly said to have been merely a settlement of the State revenue for a term of years; the right to such settlement was, however, hereditary, and the insertion of clauses by which the idea of proprietorship was gradually infringed upon was the act of the earlier Collectors, merely for administrative purposes, without any arrière pensée, such as actually brought about a change of tenure.

Referring to Mr. Baden-Powell's remarks on the subject of wántá (literally divided lands), if he had consulted the old Bombay Regulation III., of 1827, he would have found this and many others included among the tenures which, according to the custom of the country, conferred a prescriptive proprietary title to the lands so designated. From these the giránia (mortgaged land), mentioned by Mr. Baden-Powell under Surat, and vechánia (sold land) were excluded in the first instance as not conferring proprietary title as they were liable to be repurchased or redeemed, inasmuch as the former, at all events, were meant to be merely temporary alienations by the Patels or other revenue managers during the days of the Mahratha farms; but they were by a subsequent law included among the proprietary tenures. Among them, strange to say, was one entitled Bathámania (usurped land-originally, taken forcible possession of); others were girás (really blackmail land); and vol, of similar origin; pasáeta (presented or held for service to villagers-temples, etc.); aidá (dowry land); and hádia or hádka* (literally bone or blood-money land, given for life sacrificed in defence of village rights), etc. As an inquiry into lands held under these and other prescriptive titles would have entailed prolonged expense for the payment of huge establishments, it was considered advisable to pass a law (in 1853, as far as I recollect) by which Misprinted, if I remember rightly, bariá.

*

on the holders agreeing to pay as a quit-rent in lieu of investigation of titles from one-eighth to one-half assessment, all titles were confirmed and new title-deeds were given. Hence came the name of sanadi salámi (quitrent according to grant), which Mr. Baden-Powell has erroneously assumed to exist in Talukdari villages. The words, by the way, are not sanad-isalámi, as given by him. He also says:

"In all villages completely dominated by the darbár, or Talukdari kindred, we find (as usual) that the old raiyatvári village organization of the cultivators has been completely overborne."

If this means that the raiyats originally held proprietary rights which the Talukdars have usurped, I doubt it, for I have frequently asked the farmers who own the land, and they unhesitatingly answer that the darbár does, and can even turn them out of their houses and sell them if it desires to do so.

By the term rahát-vántâ, used in describing the tenure of some of the Bharuch udhad-gamábandi estates, Mr. Baden-Powell understands that "they were allowed to be free of revenue on condition of quiet and peace (ráhat) being maintained, and perhaps some other service rendered; otherwise they were liable to be called on at any moment to pay full rates." He has been misinformed, as the term merely means an "easy" rental, similar to salámi, or quit-rent, on other alienated lands, which is, I believe, fixed in perpetuity, no such conditions being implied; how they came originally to be let off with easy rentals is lost in the obscurity of time.

In his summary of the history of the Rajput and Koli estates, Mr. Baden-Powell states they are now acknowledged as proprietorships or landed estates, and they are, or can be, surveyed, and all sub-shares and rights recorded. It must be understood that such survey is not a detailed measurement of and classification of soils in fields, such as those on which assessments in rayatvári villages are based, but a rough survey to ascertain approximately the fair rentals of estates, to afford the Revenue officers data on which to fix the Government demands in place of untrustworthy estimates based on former payments, or what the estates have yielded while under temporary official management. Such a survey is one for the ascertainment of the resources and protection of the Talukdars as well as the State, and may afford a means by which the constantly increasing sapping of the means out of which the State revenues have to be met in consequence of the necessities of ever-expanding families, whom they are bound to support, may be checked; otherwise their fate is inevitable, and they must in time sink to the level of ordinary rayats.

In conclusion I would point out that Surat is anglice Surat and not Surát, and according to the proper native accent Súrat (phonetically Soorut); Chunwál is from Chunwális or 44, and not 41, and the Kaira Talúka mentioned as containing the Maleki estates is Thásra, not Thansra. Faithfully yours,

A. ROGERS.