Communities.

Village organisation in Kolaba is, and seems always to have been, feeble. A. large number of the villages are held by renters or 'khots, who are always village accountants. The officers found in most villages are the headman or patil, the accountant talati or kulkarni, and the Mhar. Hereditary patils are found only in Alibag and Pen. There are a few in Roha who originally belonged to Alibag. Over the rest of Roha, Mangaon, and Mahad, the headmen are appointed by Government. They are a very different class from Gujarat and Deccan headmen, and have little influence They are seldom even fairly intelligent, and, except among the hereditary headmen, there are not half a dozen who can write their names or read them when written. Patils are commonly Marathas, but some are found belonging to all except the degraded classes. In some parts a great proportion of the villagers are of one caste, especially in the khar or salt villages of Nagothna which are thronged with Agris. But, there is probably no case, except in a Thakur's or Kathkari's hamlet, where all the people belong to one caste.

In rented, or khoti, villages, which are very numerous in the south of the district, the khot is the accountant. Directly managed or khalsa villages are usually thrown into' groups of three or more villages and placed under the care of a stipendiary accountant or talati is paid in cash by Government. As the revenue is often small, sometimes as many as ten or twelve villages are under one man, and the group is often broken by khoti villages.

The Mhar is paid a certain portion of the village produce in grain. He has many duties to perform. He is the village messenger, beadle, watchman, and referee in boundary questions. The Kolaba, Mhar is badly off, very few get any state allowance, and the villagers have begun to grudge their contributions. The result is bad feeling between the Mhar and the cultivators, and accusations that the Mhars poison cattle for the sake of their skins.

In addition to the headman, the accountant, and the beadle, the villages have usually a barber nhavi and a washerman dhobi, both of them, like the Mhar, paid in grain. Some villages in Mahad have a kumbhar or potter, who supplies the people with earthen vessels.

Movements.

Every November or December, after the rice harvest is over, Kunbis and Mhars, chiefly from Mahad and Mangaon, move to Bombay and other labour markets. They work during the fair months, and, at the close of the hot-weather, return with money enough to buy seed and keep their families during the rainy months. In their absence the women and children live on the small store of grain they may have been able to keep over from the previous harvest, and eke out a subsistence by the sale of firewood, grass, and fowls. Besides going as labourers to Bombay, Kunbis enter the army, the police, and other branches of Government service, and remit money to their relations who remain at home to look after the land. Brahmans obtain employment as clerks in Government service, and Musalmans add to the profits of their lands by engaging in trade or shipping. Except some Shikalgars or tool-polishers, Beldars or stone-cutters, and Dhangars or shepherds, who yearly visit the district from the Deccan, there are no immigrants. There are no general movements of the people from one part of the district to another.