possessed judicial powers in cases concerning finance and land titles. The chief judge of the province, subject however to appeals to the governor, was the _Nizam_. He heard the serious criminal cases, and his deputy, the _Daroga Adaulat al Aulea_, attended to most of the important civil ones. Local _Kazis_, aided by _Muftis_, _Mohtesibs_, and _Kutwals_ or mayors, kept order in the smaller cities and districts. _Rajahs_ who had made terms with the emperor exercised powers very similar to those of the _Nawabs_. Their positions were secured by heredity, however, and in their provinces the imperial financial and judicial officers had no jurisdiction. They simply owed military service and a certain amount of tribute, failing in which they might be reduced by force of arms. The Ottoman system contained no subjects who were at once so secure of their positions, so nearly independent, and so powerful as the _Rajahs_. Kurdish, Albanian, and Arabian chieftains were perhaps as secure and as independent, but they were of very small wealth and might; while the Voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia were not so secure or so independent. The condition of the common people under this government is to be known mainly by inference. Various documents and acts show the benevolent intentions of emperors and high officials toward the masses. Whether from wise prevision or from genuine charitable feeling, there appears to have been much solicitude lest the cultivators of the soil should be reduced to utter penury or driven from their lands. Akbar, for instance, issued strict orders that on military expeditions nothing should be taken from the people without careful assessment and immediate or subsequent payment. Nevertheless, at the best the result of the general policy was to leave the cultivator little more than a bare living. The whole system drained away wealth to a few great cities and a comparatively few persons. If but few complaints rose from the masses, it was because their lot was no worse than that of their forefathers had been for many generations. Aside from the periods of civil war, the Moguls gave peace and order. Akbar removed internal tolls two centuries before such a thing was accomplished in France, and thus made of the land a single economic unit, with the result that in his reign India as a whole enjoyed such prosperity as she has known at very few other periods in her history.