539
border villages that the offence would be serious-
ly punished in future.
No attempt has ever been made to exterminate
the plant in the hills. In the plains any officer
seeing a plant is, as a matter of fact, bound to
cause it to be uprooted or to prosecute according
as the plant is found in unoccupied or occupied
land. There has been no organised attempt to
exterminate the plant on unoccupied lands in the
plains. I do not think such attempt is necessary,
because the quantity of such growth is very small,
and has a tendency to decrease as lands become
occupied. There is practically no growth in occu-
pied lands now. Penalties were necessary at first
to make the people understand the law; but now
the difficulty of concealing the plant and the ex-
istence of the prohibition are sufficient to prevent
the growth.
I think that, upon the whole, there is more con-
sumption by foreigners than by the Assamese in
the six districts of the Assam Valley. In the
Kamrup district there are few foreigners, and the
majority of consumers are Assamese. The con-
sumption of the current year will be higher than
that of the last, owing to the influx of foreign
labourers for the railway works, by some 11 maunds.
The Bhutias smoke ganja extensively, as the Raja
has told me, and his territory extends 200 miles
along the frontier, and covers the lower ranges
to a depth of three or four days' journey. I have
never seen the people in the higher Naga Hills
and the Lushai Hills smoke ganja. I have lived for
years with these people and am sure that they do
not use ganja. About the Naga tribes of Mani-
pur, I can say that they do not use ganja, and
they probably cover half of the territory. I can-
not say anything about the Khasia and Garo Hills.
I have had Khasia coolies who smoked ganja—one
man out of 700 or 1,000 perhaps. In two years'
expeditions I can only remember having to sup-
ply ganja to three or five smokers.
There is no religious feeling among the hill tribes
about the drug. The Assamese present it at the
temples of Mahadeo at Gauhati and Haja, 15 miles
from Gauhati. The drug is presented both as
"chat bhang" and "ghota bhang," that is, dry
for smoking and liquid for drinking
These are
temples where I know of the use. It is also ob-
served in other temples of Mahadeo. I do not
know of its being used at temples or festivals of
other deities. The shopkeepers say that of their
Assamese customers the best are the Brahmans, the
most numerous the fishermen and boatmen.
I have not seen enough to connect the drugs
with crime in any general way, and I can only
give one instance in which a murder was commit-
ted by a man under the alleged influence of bhang.
The man was a Nepalese, a sawyer. He had been
working in the lower hills, and been away from
civilization for several months. On his return to
the plains he took bhang, and under the excite-
ment caused by it cut down an inoffensive villager
whom he had never met before and with whom he
had no sort of quarrel whatever. I tried the case
myself. The man pleaded he was under the in-
fluence of ganja and had not the faintest recollec-
tion of what he had done. I think he was hanged.
The case occurred in 1889 or 1890, and the record
must be with the Deputy Commissioner of Tezpur.
The man had taken some alcoholic drink at
the house of the man he killed. When he
asked for more it was refused him, and he cut the
man down. The taking of bhang was accused's
plea in defence, and I cannot say if it was estab-
lished by evidence. The whole facts can be ascer-
tained from the record.*
The explanation of the wide range of retail price
in different districts lies in the fact that retail
vendors either compete or combine to keep up the
price. The competition for retail licenses tends to
raise the retail price of the drug; the competition
in retailing tends in the opposite direction. In
Gauhati the retail shops are mainly in the hands
of the wholesale vendors, and the competition is
really between the wholesale vendors, who have
the whole business in their hands. There is no
class of middlemen properly so called in this dis-
trict. The high price in the Naga Hills is due
to the special circumstances under which the shop
is conducted. There is a constant passage of
troops and coolies in connection with the road-
making, and there is consequently a ready sale of
the drug and competition for the shop is keen.
I should consider it an improvement to assimi-
late the ganja excise system to that of opium, that
is to say, that Government should purchase and
store the ganja and sell it to retail vendors at a
fixed price. There would be risk of loss through
damage to the ganja, but the prices bid for the
shops would fully compensate for this. We should
know more about the traffic and consumption,
check adulteration, and ensure the quality of the
drug. I do not think the closer association of
Government with the traffic need be regarded as
any obstacle to the charge. We should simply be
establishing a firmer control over the traffic.
In this district no advantage would be gained
by merely fixing the price at which the wholesale
vendors should sell to the retail vendor, because
there are enough wholesale vendors competing to
keep the price from fluctuating.
* See appendix to Mr. McCabe' s evidence.
Note by the Commission appended to
MR. MCCABE'S evidence.
The records of the case have been destroyed, as
the murderer was hanged. Three special police
reports, however, have been traced, the first of
which, written by Mr. W. B. Waller, then in
charge of the District Police, contains a brief
account of the case and abstract of evidence forth-
coming. This report is dated 25th April 1889.
The abstract of evidence shows that the accused
was drunk with liquor at the time, and committed
the murder in a drunken fray, of which the prin-
cipal feature was that he demanded more drink
(madh). There is no mention whatever of hemp
in any form in any of the reports.
4 B 2