nteresting
national literature. The Burmese are fond of stage-plays in which great
licence of language is permitted, and great liberty to "gag" is left to the
wit or intelligence of the actors.

_Government._--The province as a division of the Indian empire is
administered by a lieutenant-governor, first appointed 1st May 1897, with a
legislative council of nine members, five of whom are officials. There are,
besides, a chief secretary, revenue secretary, secretary and two
under-secretaries, a public works department secretary with two assistants.
The revenue administration of the province is superintended by a financial
commissioner, assisted by two secretaries, and a director of land records
and agriculture, with a land records departmental staff. There is a chief
court for the province with a chief justice and three justices, established
in May 1900. Other purely judicial officers are the judicial commissioner
for Upper Burma, and the civil judges of Mandalay and Moulmein. There are
four commissioners of revenue and circuit, and nineteen deputy
commissioners in Lower Burma, and four commissioners and seventeen deputy
commissioners in Upper Burma. There are two superintendents of the Shan
States, one for the northern and one for the southern Shan States, and an
assistant superintendent in the latter; a superintendent of the Arakan hill
tracts and of the Chin hills, and a Chinese political adviser taken from
the Chinese consular service. The police are under the control of an
inspector-general, with deputy inspector-general for civil and military
police, and for supply and clothing. The education department is under a
director of public instruction, and there are three circles--eastern,
western and Upper Burma, each under an inspector of schools.

The Burma forests are divided into three circles each under a conservator,
with twenty-one deputy conservators. There are also a deputy
postmaster-general, chief superintendent and four superintendents of
telegraphs, a chief collector of customs, three collectors and four port
officers, and an inspector-general of jails. At the principal towns benches
of honorary magistrates, exercising powers of various degrees, have been
constituted. There are forty-one municipal towns, fourteen of which are in
Upper Burma. The commissioners of division are _ex officio_ sessions judges
in their several divisions, and also have civil powers, and powers as
revenue officers. They are responsib