A Statistical Account of Bengal (Volume 3) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and snake-bites 337; 1867, wild beasts 8, and snake-bites 155; 1868, wild beasts 45, and snake-bites 475; 1869, wild beasts 46, and snake-bites 492. Total for the six years, wild beasts 250, and snake-bites 2453. No rewards have ever been paid in Midnapur District for the destruction of poisonous serpents. The smaller sorts of game met with are wild-geese and ducks, snipe, ortolans, teal, hare, etc. No trade is carried on in wild-beast skins; and, with the exception of the fisheries, the ferx naturtz are not made to contribute in any way towards the wealth of the District. Population.?Repeated efforts have been made towards an enumeration of the population of Midnapur. One of the earliest recorded attempts was in 1802, when Sir H. Strachey, Judge and Magistrate of Midnapur, reported that the population of the District amounted to at least one and a half millions. This Census was based on an actual enumeration of a large part of the District, with an estimate for the remainder on the statistics thus elicited. No comparison can be made from the population as then returned and the present population, as the area of the District is not the same. Parts of the present Districts of Huglf and Balasor were then included in Midnapur; while, on the other hand, the tract of country on the west belonged to the neighbouring District of Bdn- kurd, or, as it was then called, the Jungle Mahals; and all the Hijili portion of the District to the east and south formed a separate Collectorate. In 1837, the population of Midnapur, including Hijili, was estimated at 1,360,699, the basis of calculation being an enumeration of the houses, and estimating the average number of inmates per house to be five. In 1852, Mr. H. V. Bayley, the then Collector, assuming the same average of five persons per house...