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 BURMA 473 The pastoral and agricultural classes comprise 6-A15 out of every and three justices, established in May 1900. Other purely 10,000 persons of both sexes, and only a very small proportion of these are employed in stock-breeding. The next most important judicial officers are the judicial commissioner for Upper class is that of persons engaged in the preparation and supply of Burma, and the civil judges of Mandalay and Moulmein. food. Of these, the fishermen, grain-dealers, fruit and vegetable There are four commissioners of revenue and circuit, and sellers, are for the most part Burmese, the stock-breeders and nineteen deputy commissioners in Lower Burma, and four butchers are chiefly Choliars or Chittagonians. Handicraftsmen, wood-carvers, lacquerers, makers of textile fabrics, boat-builders, commissioners and seventeen deputy commissioners in workers in metal, potters, carpenters, form only a very small per- Lpper Burma. There are two superintendents of the centage of the total population. Of monks or pongyiis there were Shan States, one for the northern and one for the southern in 1891 in Lower Burma 13,613, and in Upper Burma 11,894. Shan States, and an assistant superintendent in the latter • Of upazins, or probationers, there were 6668 in Lower Burma, and 14,109 in Upper Burma. A Burman is a jack-of-all trades, and a a supei intendent of the Arakan Hill tracts and of the very large number of them work at different times at all sorts of Chin Hills, and a Chinese political adviser taken from the employments. There is no leisured class to speak of. There were Chinese consular-service. The police are under the control no more than 652 males who could be taken to correspond with the of an inspector-general, with deputy inspector-general for leisured class of European countries. The Malthusian maxim that population tends to outgrow the civil and military police, and for supply and clothing. The means of support does not yet apply to Burma. The soil is too Education Department is under a director of public rich, and there is too great a superabundance of culturable land. instruction, and there are three circles—eastern, western^ War and epidemic disease did not influence the country even in Upper Burma to any appreciable extent during the period 1880- and Upper Burma, each under an inspector of schools. The Burma forests are divided into three circles each 1900. Famine has never been known in Lower Burma, and failure of crops and deficient rainfall in Upper Burma only tend to swell under a conservator, with twenty-one deputy conservators. the tide of emigration to the more favoured districts of the lower There are also a deputy postmaster-general, chief superinprovince Turning now to consider the births and deaths, these in Lower tendent and four superintendents of telegraphs, a chief collector of customs, three collectors and four port officers Burma were as follows :—• and an inspector-general of jails. At the principal towns benches of honorary magistrates, Births. Deaths. Net Increase. Total exercising powers of various Increase, degrees, have been constituted. Male. Female. Total. Male. ! Female. Total. Male. Female. There are forty-one municipal 1881 38,012 35,742 73,754 31,966 26,170 58,136 towns, fourteen of which are 6046 9,572 15,618 1885 48,059 45,163 93,222 40,539 32,133 72,672 The com7520 13,030 20,550 in Upper Burma. 1890 43,918 40,851 84,769 36,091 27,500 63,591 7827 13,351 21,178 missioners of division are ex ... officio sessions judges in their For the period of ten years the natural growth by excess of several divisions, and also have civil powers, and powers as births over deaths was only 57,346, or an increase at the rate of 5 '06 per cent. The registration of births and deaths is still only revenue officers. They are responsible to the lieutenantvery partial in Upper Burma. In 1898-99 the average birth-rate governor, each in his own division, for the working of every throughout Lower Burma amounted to 34-11, and the death-rate to department of the public service, except the military depart26 13 in every thousand of the population. The proportion of deaths was practically the same as in the previous year, 26-26, while ment, and the branches of the administration directly under the number of births was greater than in any previous year, the the control of the supreme Government. The deputy com1897 figure being 31-82. The natural increment of the population missioners perform the functions of district magistrates, only accounts for 21‘9 of the total growth. The surplus of district judges, collectors and registrars, besides the mis101,433 shown (an increase of 277 per cent.) is caused by the excess of immigrants over emigrants. Between the years 1887 cellaneous duties which fall to the principal district officer as and 1891 the total number of immigrants was 558,123, and of representative of Government. Subordinate to the deputy emigrants 312,211, so that there was an average gain of 29,182 commissioners are assistant commissioners, extra-assistant persons every year. The following table shows that this rate commissioners and myooks, who are invested with various remains fairly constant in the number of immigrants and emigrants magisterial, civil, and revenue powers, and hold charge of who pass through the principal ports of the province: the townships, as the units of regular civil and revenue 1S97-98. 1898-99. jurisdiction are called, and the sub-divisions of districts, into which most of these townships are grouped. Among Emigrants. Immigrants. Emigrants. Immigrants. the salaried staff of officials, the township officers are the Akyab. 14,359 15,925 14,972 16,407 ultimate representatives of Government who come into Rangoon 75,998 106,374 91,033 132,177 most direct contact with the people. Finally, there are Moulmein 847 644 743 596 the village headmen, assisted in Upper Burma by elders, Of the 4,658,627 people in Lower Burma, 3,391,590 are Burmese and Talaings, 630,700 are Karens, and 356,087 are races from India. variously designated according to old custom. Similarly Europeans and Eurasians number 15,333, Shans, 94,302; Chinese in the towns, there are headmen of wards and elders of 31,941. The increase in the number of Burmese and Talaings in blocks. In Upper Burma these headmen have always ten years was 22'58 per cent., of Karens 217 per cent., of been revenue collectors. The system under which in Europeans 20'2 per cent., and of Chinese 146 per cent. If we add UpPer Burma, there are in the whole province towns headmen of wards and elders of blocks are 182 b 129, Burmese and Talaings ; 633,657 Karens ; 95,571 Chins • appointed is of comparatively recent origin, and is modelled 6, 4 Shans ; 432 639 o2 , i2 Europeans natives of India ; 37,407 Chinese; and on the village system. r, ^0,177 and> Eurasians. The Shan States were declared to be a part of British India by The province as a division of the Indian Empire is ad- notification in 1886. The Shan States Act of 1888 vests the civil, ministered by a Lieutenant-Governor, first appointed 1st criminal, and revenue administration in the chief of The Shan the state, subject to the restrictions specified in the a Govern. legislative council of nine sanad or patent granted to him. The law to be ad- States. in each state is the customary law of the state, meat. members, five of 'whom are officials. There are, ministered^ besides, a chief secretary, revenue secretary, sec- so. far as it is in accordance with justice, equity, and good conretary and two under-secretaries, a public works department science, and not opposed to the spirit of the law in the rest of British India. The superintendents exercise general control over secretary with two assistants. The revenue administration the of criminal justice, and have power to call for of the province is superintended by a financial commissioner, cases,administration and to exercise wide revisionary powers. Criminal jurisdicassisted by two secretaries, and a director of land records tion in cases in w-hich either the complainant or the defendant is and agriculture, with a land records departmental staff, a European, or American, or a Government servant, or a British there is a chief court for the province with a chief justice subject not a native of a Shan State, is withdrawn from the chiefs and vested in the superintendents and assistant-superintendents. S. II. — 6o