very much doubt it. The name stands for chicanery and robbery. On
the one hand the landlord is constantly stirring him up for money,
questioning his accounts, and putting him not unfrequently to actual
bodily coercion. The ryot on the other hand is constantly inventing
excuses, getting up delays, and propounding innumerable reasons why
he cannot pay. He will try to forge receipts, he will get up false
evidence that he has already paid, and the wretched _putwarrie_ needs
all his native and acquired sharpness, to hold his own. But all ryots
are not alike, and when the _putwarrie_ gets hold of some unwary and
ignorant bumpkin whom he can plunder, he _does_ plunder him
systematically. All cowherds are popularly supposed to be cattle
lifters, and a _putwarrie_ after he has got over the stage of infancy,
and has been indoctrinated into all the knavery that his elders can
teach him, is supposed to belong to the highest category of villains. A
popular proverb, much used in Behar, says:--

'Unda poortee, Cowa maro!
Iinnum me, billar:
Bara burris me, Kayashh marige!!
Humesha mara gwar!!'

This is translated thus: 'When the shell is breaking kill the crow, and
the wild cat at its birth.' A _Kayasth_, writer, or _putwarrie_, may be
allowed to live till he is twelve years old, at which time he is sure
to have learned rascality. Then kill him; but kill _gwars_ or cowherds
any time, for they are invariably rascals. There is a deal of grim
bucolic humour in this, and it very nearly hits the truth.

The _putwarrie_, then, is an important personage. He has his
_cutcherry_, or office, where he and his tribe (for there are always