Page:Bulandshahr- Or, Sketches of an Indian District- Social, Historical and Architectural.djvu/108

 The rental at present gives a return of only 4 per cent, on the outlay; the town so far as shops are concerned having now become a little over-built: for any sort of dwelling house there is a great demand; but the site was too contracted to be suitable for that purpose. The building, from most points of view, seems to be backed by the steep range of the castle hill, with the Tahsili on its top. This is a sombre jail-like pile, erected in 1866, at a cost of Rs, 14,187, on the site of the old Fort, the last relics of which were then demolished, and have ever since been regretted, as affording more comfortable quarters for the staff of revenue officials than their modern-substitute.

A little outside the Square, on the north side of the broad street, by which, as has been already mentioned, it is approached from the west, stands another conspicuously handsome private building. This is the town residence of Muhammad Ali Khan, the Honorary Magistrate of Jahángirabád. Here also—as in Mihrbán Ali's house—the carriage entrance is from a back lane, where the ground is on a level with the roof of the shops that form the basement story of the front. A spacious stone verandah overlooks the street, and runs the whole length of the principal reception hall, which was first used on the 25th February 1882 for a dinner that wound up the festivities of the Annual Show. A stone model of the façade was ordered by Mr. Purdon Clarke as a characteristic specimen of modern Indian architecture, and has been deposited in the South Kensington Museum. The chief peculiarity of the style, which is the same as that employed in the two companion buildings already described, consists in the great depth of the apparently slender shafts that support the arcade. They cover the entire thickness of the wall on which they stand, and are thus very substantial supports, though their front shows a breadth of only two or three inches. The back ground of the frieze and string courses, and the outlines of the panels in the balcony screens, are coloured with different tints which give prominence to the carving and a general air of brightness to the whole composition. This practice is comparatively a novelty, but has at once found imitators, and is now generally adopted in all new buildings in the neighbourhood.

At the west end of this street, on opposite sides of a small open place, stand the English School and the Dispensary, both substantial buildings, erected the one in 1864, the other in 1867, under the supervision of Mr. Webster, the then Collector. The materials and construction, for