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برسی
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TELEC.O. 882
וןוווווווו
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
Gannewe. The statement shows 46 deaths. From the lists I make out-
1. Deaths previously to the sales
2. Children who were born after the sales
3. Deaths after the land was redeemed
4. In the year of sale.
5. After sale
7
1
3
32
47
Of those under the last heading there died five years after the sale (one in child-bed, one at the age of 60), 2; of "abscess in the jaw and want of proper nourishment
the
at
age of 80 years, 1; of small-pox, 1; in fair circumstances (a child of four years), 1; after the land had ceased to be cultivated, 5.
There remain 25 persons, of whom five were 60 years of age and over, and three were children under five
years of
age.
Diyatilaka. The statement shows 11 deaths. From the lists I make out-
1 Deaths previously to the salo
-
2. Deaths of children who were born after the sales
3. Deaths in the year of sale
4. Deaths after the sales
1
-
9
3
10
23
Of those under the third heading there died of small-pox, 1; and of those under the fourth heading, of scrofula, 1; owning other land, 1; five years after the sale (at age of 60 years), I.
years of age.
There remain nine persons, of whom two were 70 and 80 Gangapaláta. The statement shows 120 deaths. From the lists I make out--
3. Deaths of children who were born after the sales
1. Deaths previously to the sales
1
2. Where the land was not sold
-
1
12
4.) In the case of land bought (Before the land was bought in 5.J in for the Crown
13
After the land was bought in
44
6. In the year of sale
→
7
56
134
7. After the sales
Of those under the fifth heading, the land had ceased to be cultivated in every case but one, if not in that case also. In that instance the parents of two children who died left the village the year before the field was bought in, and the children died the year after it had been bought in. In 10 of the cases the field had been restored.
Of those under the sixth heading, the land had ceased to be cultivated in four cases; death is attributed to "child-birth and want of food" in one; whilst of those under the last heading, there died five and six years after the sale, 6; after the land had ceased to be cultivated, 10; of an abscess in the jaw, 1; of cholera, 1; in child-bed, 1; of an internal malady, 1; in fair circumstances, 1.
There remain 38 persons, of whom six at least were under five To summarise. I make out the following figures from the lists, viz. :—
years
of age.
Total Deathe according
Deduct as described abova.
Remainder.
to Lista.
F883
Walapane.
Udapaláta
161
71
90
Yatipuláta
191
68
128
Medapaláta
126
61
Oyapaláta
152
64
88
Uda Hédheta.
Udagampaha
68
45
23
Pallégampaha
150
79
71
Kohoke
78
28
45
47
22
28
28
14
9
134
96
38
1,125
552
573
Gannowe
Diyatilaka Gangapaláta
Total
And those 573 include the owners of the land and their families to the third or fourth generation.
16. That some of these deaths were directly caused by the sales I fully believe; for instance, take the following appearing in the lists :-
Tennekóngedara Ukkurála (aged 50), of Hégama, was in arrear with the tax of his field, Tennekónkumbura, about one acre in extent. Both crops grown by him, his cattle and movable property, and lastly his field, are said to have been sold in 1884. Two of his children (aged four and six years) died in that year, and he himself and another child (aged two years) died in the following year. His widow works as a cooly on an estate.
Goru, widow of Ulpatakumbura Kalubanda, of Udagama (aged 58), owned three small fields aggregating about two acres. These were sold in 1882 and 1884. She is reported to have died in 1885 from want of food. This woman had four sons; two died before the last of the sales, the other two are in fair circumstances, but, as stated in many other cases also, people in Walapane do not attend to the support of their parents.
In these and a few other cases where the owners of the fields were too old to go seeking for employment, I do not doubt that the deaths were more or less immediately caused by the sale of the land; but careful scrutiny of the particulars furnished to me does not reveal many such cases. As a rule, either the people dispossessed had other land or were non-resident. And many of the deaths recorded are those of persons who, although related to, had no real claim to be supported by, the landowner whose field was sold people for whose support in addition to the support of the landowner and his family the field was wholly inadequate. Here are two instances :-
Ketakelé, of two pelas (one acre), was sold in 1884. The son of the original com- muter owned it. He had a wife and three children and two married sisters, one with one child and the other with four children. The death of the son (two years after the sale), one of his sisters in 1884, after the desertion of her husband, and two years after the sale of one of the children of the other sister, who had been also deserted by her husband, are put down to the sale of this field.
Halgahagatakumbura, of six kurunies (a little over one-fourth acre). This is said to have been owned by the heirs of Konegedara Punchirala. The list includes four married daughters, three married sons, some grandchildren and even great grand- children of the original commuter, in all 48 souls. Two grandchildren included in the list of deaths died of fever, or consumption and want of food, and another is the man who figures in the particulars given in paragraph 13 as having been shot whilst in the act of thieving.
I need not multiply instances; there are many such as these in the lists. But from the four cases above quoted it will be seen that there have been instances in which the recovery of the arrears was harshly, if not cruelly, enforced; whilst, on the other hand, there have been deaths attributed to the sale of fields which it would be merely ridiculous to assign to that cause. After the lapse of so much time I deem it quite impossible to ascertain with precision in how many instances death can be rightly attributed to the sale of land. Reference is made in the lists to persons who died from destitution previously to the sales; the evidence taken by me shows that the people had been gradually becoming impoverished for several years before these sales were held, and I cannot doubt that if there had been exceptional mortality it would have been assignable rather to the general poverty of the people, following the destruction of their coffee plantations, than to the sale merely of their small fields.
17. I have not attempted to obtain particulars from the registers of deaths. It is matter of notoriety that the villagers are caraloss in regard to registration, and the information furnished to the Assistant Agent, gathered by inquiry in each village by special officers, is likely to be as accurate as any that can be got by examination of the registers, which examination would take up a good deal of time. But as the same cause of inaccuracy which affects registration in the Nuwara Eliya District equally affects registration in the Kandy District, comparison of the returns of mortality in the two districta may, I think, be relied on as indicating whether or not there was B 3
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