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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 4, p. 386.

386 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP. Mughal but little change, as there the petty chiefs were retained and empire. allowed to collect the revenue from the villagers; and even where the appointment of revenue officials was the rule, the tendency was for the office to become hereditary and for the tax-gatherer to merge in the landed proprietor. Each superior landlord was required to maintain a quota of troops, and these forces were utilized as police to suppress internal disorders and to deal with serious outbreaks of such crimes as dacoity and robbery. The system of spies was also developed, and Haidar All in Mysore used his postal officials as an elaborate police intelligence department. With the decline of the Mughal power the system of police fell into great disorder, and the petty chiefs and zamindars, no longer dreading punishment from above, used their adherents to ravage and plunder the lands of their neighbours. 'They extorted and amassed wealth which was dissipated in a jealous rivalry of magnificent pageantry. The weapons which were intended for the enemies of the state were turned against the state itself, and against each other, and were used for plans of personal aggrandizement, mutual revenge, or public plunder .' This evil example was followed by the village headmen and the village police. Most of the latter became thieves themselves, and many of the former harboured criminals and connived at crime for a share of the booty. The liability of the watchmen to restore the stolen property or make good its value was dis- regarded, and it was impossible to enforce the old village responsibility, that 'coarse but effectual remedy,' as Mount- stuart Elphinstone calls it, 'against the indifference of the neighbourhood to the sufferings of individuals.' First This was the state of things which the British found in the efforts early days of their rule, and as a first step towards reform the towards police or- zamindars were relieved of their police duties, which were ganization transferred tothe District Magistrates, each Districtbeingdivided under British into small police jurisdictions with an area of about 20 square rule. miles. This formed the charge of a daroga, who had under him twenty to fifty armed men, and was also given authority over the village watchmen. This system, which entirely dis- regarded the village headman and converted the watchman from a servant of the village into an ill-paid and disreputable subordinate of the daroga, proved to be an expensive failure; and, owing largely to the representations of Elphinstone and Munro, it was abolished, under orders issued by the Court of Directors in 1814, in all the Company's possessions except 1 East India Judicial Seeictions, vol. i, p. 154.