Waaris onlied by the Bombay Gazette a Curious Temperance Movement has Intely taken place in the Konkan, a diet riot near Bombay. It appears that for some years the people of Panwell have been deprived of the right of drawing and selling toddy from their own trees, the exclusive privilege of drawing and selling it being given to the liquor farmer, and the tree tax having been raised from 4 annas to Be, 16 por tree, In consequence of this, even the liquor seller las been unable to sell toddy at s reasonable rate, while in former years the toddy tree owners, after supplying their own waste, sold their surplus toddy and maintained themselves. People are now required to pay one anna per bottle for toddy, which in a district who wages are only three annas " day, one writer says, simply ridioulone. Phe restrictions Lave driven the people into the adoption of peculine means in the the liquor contractors It appears however that it is not the contractors ho are to blame, but the Government, who have tried to increase their revenue from liquor, without duly considering the effect which a sudden and great inoresse on the duty would have upon the people. Judging from what a cor respondent of our contemporary, wri on the spot, says, the liquor farmers are likely to be ruined and the revenue from the source to be The state to which the liquor farmers are reduced by the notion of the Govern. ment seems to have awakened some sympathy for them in the Indian news+ papers; they Lave not done well for come time past and have a good deal of money at take on the contracts into which they lave entered with the Abkari Department, which regulates the dis-filiation of strong liquors, It would leo appear that there has been great discontent among the people of Konkan and in Gozorat with the Abkari laws, and that for many years the people ave been waiting for the Government to relieve th Fi however, that there was nothing prospect of their grievances redressed, but, on the contrary, that things, as far as toddy was concerned, went from bad to worse, the people have at length taken the mutter into their own lands, and that in a fashion which -must- lave considerably astonished officials, whatever gladness it may lave brought to those who are before all things total abstainers from intoxicating drink. The population of the districts among which the move. mont first began, and, it would seem, in other districts in the Bombay Presidency if not in other parts of India, have been eschewing toddy drinking and the use of strong ware: and that, not from any belief in the virtuea.of total. abetinouce, but simply eae wespon. wherewith to bring the Gorscament to thei see and obtain wine of the country at a rensunable ice. The Gover before has a placed in one if several dilemmas, The revenue will euffer, if a large namber of the people oun to drink water or non excisable liquids. The people are not only abstaining, but it would seem that they have been preaching the virtues of total obs ence, and have modes of persus brought some of the headmen into the Magistrate's court, It is quite possible that a movement began merely as a protest against what the people con-idea unfair and oppressive taxation on a well loved, refreshment, muy become a crusade against the use of intoxioating liquors altogether. More, unlikely things a that have happened, but, whether or the result, the movement one, For liquor and bros of it, and indeed taste fur strong
some of their castes have had from vid The men and women in the villages have beau in the habit of getting drunk after sunset, and some places it was said thirty yen ago that there was scarcely x sober an to be found in a village pftor it, The most bibalous people in Gazerat are abstaining, ud, among the aboriginal tribes, the movement is said to have gained ong folk who might have dered impermeable by any sort of temperance doctrine, Among those of whom it was said that they would drink until they had only one rag left, and then would sell that rag that they wight drink more, the follow. ug incident occurred in December Ina village near the Damaun territory the strange spectacle was witnessed of a thousand or more people belonging to the aboriginal tribes in public meet. ing assembled, listening to the solicitatious of balfea-dozen of thole number in a way that not to bay liquor, The Indian Government will, she this movement continue, be able to oun sole themselves for the loss of revenue the reflection that the new total abstainers are after all merely carrying out their own paternal policy, often annonuoed, of repressing drunkenness, as far as that could be done by levying high daties on liquor, Somewhat inconsistently they do not appear to have viewed the movement in that light, for they took proceedings against Agris who enacted that of their caste fellows who bought liquor sabjeoted to penalties for so doing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.