201
years, but then the withdrawal of the prohibition
against import will have reduced smuggling.
The statement I have prepared shows that the
average quantity found in each case was three-
quarters of a seer. The total average amount
seized per annum was fifty seers taking the total
of the cases in which the amount was recorded.
I believe that formerly twenty maunds were
smuggled in, and the detections were therefore
only one-sixteenth of the cases. But I think we
are better now as the establishments are im-
proved. I think our success is much greater. I
see that in 1889 only forty-five seers were seized,
which is near the average. But I think that we
have got hold of a greater proportion of cases
now; and that our figure for seizures, though
not higher, represents a far higher proportion of
the cases that occur. Of course my figure is only
a rough estimate; but I adhere to it that we
catch fifty or sixty per cent. of the cases that
occur. I do not think that the smuggling now
under the present system exceeds five maunds in
the year in the Puri District.
There is no bhang used in the Puri District.
No licenses are given. The Gurjat ganja is used
as bhang. It is not much smoked in Puri town.
The Pandas and others drink the stuff. It may
be smoked near the border to a considerable
extent where the people get it from the States.
There were bhang licenses before. When I speak
of Gurjat ganja being drunk I speak of the licit
ganja. I have been told that Gurjat ganja is
smoked only when Rajshahi ganja is not available
in the place. I have myself never seen ganja
smoked, so as to know what was being smoked,
except in shops where Rajshahi ganja alone was
sold and on one or two occasions when I was mak-
ing experiments as to the effects of ganja. There-
fore I know personally nothing of the effect of the
smuggling of Gurjat ganja on the use of the Raj-
shahi stuff. But if what I have stated above as
being told to me is true, the effect is little.
I am told that in the years when there was no
bhang and Gurjat ganja was also prohibited, some
of the Pandas took Rajshahi ganja in their drink.
But the great bulk of what they use must then
have been smuggled in. They are large con-
sumers. Very nearly the whole of the licit Gurjat
ganja imported into the district is consumed in
Puri town as drink.
The Rajshahi ganja is said to be weaker than
the Gurjat ganja. I asked some old smokers and
licensees who say that the Gurjat ganja is stronger
than the Rajshahi and produces dysentery and
bowel complaints. I have no knowledge of this
subject apart from this.
71. Evidence of BABU ROY BRAHMA DUTT, * Kayasth, Excise Deputy Collector,
Darbhanga.
1.
Being a resident of Behar, and having
served as an Excise Officer in all the districts of
the Patna Division, I have had an opportunity of
obtaining information regarding matters connected
with hemp drugs in regard to which my answers
are framed.
2. The three narcotic articles are locally known
by their district names of ganja, charas, and
bhang respectively; the last being recognized also
by the names subji, patti, buti and thandai.
The definitions of the first two of these three
articles, as given by Dr. Prain, may be accepted
for this province; but that given for the third
does not wholly
apply to it, because by
bhang the people here understand leaves of
bhang plant only and not those of ganja plant
also.
3. I know by personal observation that the
hemp plant grows wild in Saran, Champaran,
Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur, in which last it does
abundantly.
4. Bhang and phul bhang are the names of
the plant which grows spontaneously in those
districts. Yes, they refer exactly to the same
plant.
5. I have ascertained from a work on materia
medica in the Persian language that the plant
grows both in plains and mountainous lands.
I understand by experience that it grows spon-
taneously in Balsumbhi or Balsundar
(mixed or
sandy soil) land; and it is, I infer, from the
character of this kind of soil, that both the ganja
and the ganja-producing tract in Rajshahi are
designated bálu-char (balu meaning sand, and char
meaning alluvial land); and also in saliferous soil,
which is deducible from the fact that the plant
grows wild more or less in all the salt-producing
No, certainly not: witness
its luxuriant growth in
Assam in its wild state?
H. C. W.
No.
H. C. W.
districts in this division and in those of Bhagal-
pur and Rajshahi and in several such other dis-
tricts in Bengal. It re-
quires moderate climate
for its growth; extreme
moisture is prejudicial to
it. It does not thrive in marshy land, nor does it
require too much rain.
High sandy and salifer-
ous soil is necessary for
its growth.
It is both.
H. C. W.
6. Yes, the growth of
the wild hemp is ordina-
rily dense.
7. There is no licensed cultivation of the hemp
plant in this division, nor does any illicit cultiva-
tion of it, as far as I know, now exist in any of
its districts.
8. See the above.
9. While employed as a Special Divisional
Excise Inspector in Behar, I detected a number
of instances of unlicensed cultivation of bhang
and ganja in some of the south Gangetic districts
in which, I know by experience, the plants do not
grow wild. In Gundi, in the Shahabad District,
I found bhang cultivated in poppy fields. This
was in the month of January 1882. The plants
were seen scattered but growing promiscuously
with poppy on the ridges and in the beds prepared
for the latter. They looked very healthy, because
they were regularly watered along with poppy
plants, which would not otherwise thrive from the
nature of the soil of that district. The drug
produced in Gundi was, I was informed, reputed
for its strong narcotic effect, and it was so because
the hemp plants were nurtured and allowed to grow
with poppy plants. In the following month I
discovered a number of cases of similar cultivation
* With marginal notes by Mr. H. C. Williams, Collector of Darbhanga.
2 F