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88 of the districts, those officers were, for various reasons, but few. and their districts the most difficult. But these were the cases that stamped the tone and mode of control desired, and gave the keynote to that later administration, adopted for the Punjab after the annexation, which proved so effective and was universally hailed as a model. Short as the time had been, the whole country had been more or less surveyed; the fiscal and excise systems had been readjusted; oppressive duties and Government monopolies had been abolished; and roads had been started. Further, a simple code of laws, founded on Sikh customs, had been framed by a selected body of some fifty heads of villages under the supervision of Sardár Lehna Singh. This same Sardár Lehna Singh had also been giving valuable aid in the general administration; for it was under his influence that the Manjha, the greatest and most important of the Sikh districts, containing both Lahore and Amritsir, had been specially quiet and tranquil. But there were two men who were held to need careful watching; Sultán Muhammad Khán, of Dost Muhammad's family, who governed Pesháwar, and Sardár Chattar Singh (Attaríwála), who was the ruler of Huzára — the father-in-law of the Mahárájá Dhulíp Singh, and the father of Sher Singh, the leading member of the Council of Regency.

No one thought at that juncture that the author of any approaching mischief in the Sikh community would be found in the Khatrí Governor of the remote, out of the way, Muhammadan district of Múltán.