Note 96 — PRINCE AHMAD AND THE FAIRY PERI-BANU.[63] (continued 2)

Nazaránah prop. = the gift (or gifts) offered at visits by a Moslem noble or feoffee in India to his feudal superior; and the Kalíchah of Hindú, Malabar, Goa and the Blue Mountains (p. 197). Hence the periodical tributes and especially the presents which represent our “legacy-duty” and the “succession-duty” for Rajahs and Nabobs, the latter so highly lauded by “The Times,” as the logical converse of the Corn-laws which ruined our corn. The Nazaránah can always be made a permanent and a considerable source of revenue, far more important than such unpopular and un-Oriental device as an income-tax. But our financiers have yet to learn the A. B. C. of political economy in matters of assessment, which is to work upon familiar lines; and they especially who, like Mr. Wilson “mad as a hatter,” hold and hold forth that “what is good for England is good for the world.” These myopics decide on theoretical and sentimental grounds that a poll-tax is bad in principle, which it may be, still public opinion sanctions it and it can be increased without exciting discontent. The same with the “Nazaránah;” it has been the custom of ages immemorial, and a little more or a little less does not affect its popularity.