Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/615

Rh  described as of a stout, active, well-proportioned form; of a brown but never of an intensely dark complexion, with black, coarse, lank, and abundant, and a little more than is possessed by the. The name they give their own race is Mran-má (as written), generally pronounced Ba-má, and from this the various forms of “Burmah” appear to have been taken. Besides the Burmese proper, there are numerous s of, , , and others toward the east, many of them in a state of semi-independence; and all round the northern frontier and along the ranges that traverse the upper regions, vast hordes of or  maintain a rough,  life, and come down to levy  on the more peaceful inhabitants. The constitute a great number of small  along the whole eastern border, subject some to Burmah, some to, some to , and in some cases owning a double allegiance, according to their position. The everywhere profess, and have some kind of  and the traces of. To their the  themselves belong. The are square-faced, strong-ed, and oblique-d. They are still in a low state of, are destitute of , and continue in. Their s are supported by offerings in kind,—receiving, for example, a of every  that is. One kind of —the of  and —is extensively carried on, and the whole  are regular consumers of the produce. Various other s, as the and the, are scattered throughout the empire; but they are not of much individual importance. The of the country has been variously estimated and grossly exaggerated by the ignorance of, who have raised it to 17,000,000, 19,000,000, and even 33,000,000. Mr Craufurd, on the best data that he could procure, rated the inhabitants at 22 to the square, which, under the now contracted limits of the empire, would give a total population of 3,090,000, and estimated, in 1855, that, within the area between the  frontier and 24° N. undefined., it probably did not exceed 1,200,000, while within the whole empire at its widest limits there were not more than 3,000,000. Count Bethlen states, in 1874, that he obtained statistics of the s in Burmah from a Burmese official, which made the number 700,000, without including those among the to the east of the ; so that if we allow five inhabitants to each we have 3,500,000 for a total, and if we include the  probably 4,000,000.

The Burmese is a pure, the dispensing, , or , according to his sovereign discretion. The chief object of seems to be the personal  and aggrandizement of the ; and the only restraint on the exercise of his prerogative is the fear of an. He is assisted in his administration by a public and a, known respectively as the Hlot-dau and the Byadeit; all questions, before they are submitted to the public advisers of his majesty, are debated in the , which consists generally of four Atwen-woons to whom are attached , and other s (Tsaré dau-gyis, “great royal writers;” Than-dau-zens, “receivers of the royal voice”), who carry messages, and report from time to time the proceedings of the  to the king. The Hlot-dau also usually consists of four s or Woongyis, and is presided over by the (Einshé-men, or  of the eastern ). The -general is an of high importance; and the other s of distinction are the king's -bearer and the master of the s, but the latter have no share in the. The king may order any of those great s to be at his pleasure; and a  may, by his order, be seized by the public er, and laid at the side of the  for hours under the burning  with a  upon his breast; and after undergoing this disgraceful, may continue to discharge his high function as before. The country at large is ruled by s, and is divided into s (or Myos), ships, s, and s. The, , , and   of the  is vested in the , or Myo-woon, who exercises the power of life and , though in all  an  lies from his sentence to the chief  at the. In all the ships and s there are s with a subordinate. But from a mere detail of the administration and  institutions of the Burmese, their extreme inefficiency can scarcely be known. No Burmese ever receives a fixed. The higher class is paid by an assignment either of land or of the and  of a given portion of the inhabitants, and the inferior magistrates by s, s, and other s; and hence  and  prevail amongst all the functionaries of the Burmese Government. is openly exposed for sale; and the exercise of the functions is so lucrative, that the two executive s have by their encroachments deprived the regular  of the greater part of his employment. The Burmese s are mainly contained in the Dhammasat, a code ascribed to, but quite different from the 's Code of the. It is said to have been introduced into Burmah from by, the traditional of the  s. The  is barbarous and severe, and the s are shocking to humanity. , from the king's service,  of s, and  or, are considered the most heinous crimes, and are cruelly , the  being in some cases , or thrown to wild. is the general mode of, but and fracture of the limbs are also practised, and women are usually put to  by the stroke of a  across the. For minor offences, s,, and s are the s adjudged. In important s is applied both to principals and es; and the ers often  their  in order to extort  from them. The and   during the war of 1824 were frequently d, and had to pay s to the er in order to procure milder treatment. by is sometimes resorted to, as well as other  modes of procedure. The administration of, however vexatious and expensive, is far from efficient; and the is as bad as can possibly be conceived.

There are no s under the Burmese Government. All the functionaries may be dismissed from their s, and deprived of their rank at the caprice of the sovereign; while any subject, with the exception of a  or, may aspire to the first s in the , to which, in reality, persons of very mean origin do frequently attain. The great officers of Government hold the first rank after the king and the s of, and are distinguished by a or , which is the  of , and of which there are different degrees, distinguished by the number of s or small s which compose the. Three of open -work mark the lowest rank; three of neatly-twisted the next; there are then six, nine, twelve, and finally twenty-four, which the king alone is entitled to wear. But every article possessed