The members of the landed aristocracy of Oude always speak with respect of the administration in our territories, but generally end with remarking on the cost and uncertainty of the law in civil cases, and the gradual decay, under its operation, of all the ancient families.  A less and less proportion of the annual produce of their lands is left to them in our periodical settlements of the land revenue, while family pride makes them expend the same sums in the marriage of their children, in religious and other festivals, personal servants, and hereditary retainers.  They fall into balance, incur heavy debts, and estate after estate is put up to auction, and the proprietors are reduced to poverty.  They say, that four times more of these families have gone to decay in the half of the territory made over to us in 1801, than in the half reserved by the Oude sovereign; and this is, I fear, true.  They named the families—­I cannot remember them.

In Oude, the law of primogeniture prevails among all the tallookdars, or principal landholders; and, to a certain extent, among the middle class of landholders, of the Rajpoot or any other military class.  If one co-sharer of this class has several sons, his eldest often inherits all the share he leaves, with all the obligations incident upon it, of maintaining the rest of the family.

The brothers of Soorujbulee, above named, do not pretend to have any right of inheritance in the share of the lands he holds; but they have a prescriptive right to support from him, for themselves and families, when they require it.  This rule of primogeniture is, however, often broken through during the lifetime of the father, who, having more of natural affection than family pride, divides the lands between his sons.  After his death they submit to this division, and take their respective shares, to descend to their children, by the law of primogeniture, or be again subdivided as may seem to them best; or they fight it out among themselves, till the strongest gets all.  Among landholders of the smallest class, whether Hindoos or Mahommedans, the lands are subdivided according to the ordinary law of inheritance.

Our army and other public establishments form a great “safety-valve” for Oude, and save it from a vast deal of fighting for shares in land, and the disorders that always attend it.  Younger brothers enlist in our regiments, or find employment in our civil establishments, and leave their wives and children under the protection of the elder brother, who manages the family estate for the common good.  They send the greater part of their pay to him for their subsistence, and feel assured that he will see that they are provided for, should they lose their lives in our service.  From the single district of Byswara in Oude, sixteen thousand men were, it is said, found to be so serving in our army and other establishments; and from Bunoda, which adjoins it to the east, fifteen thousand, on an inquiry ordered to be made by Ghazee-od Deen Hyder some twenty-five years ago.