le to the lieutenant-governor, each in
his own division, for the working of every department of the public
service, except the military department, and the branches of the
administration directly under the control of the supreme government. The
deputy commissioners perform the functions of district magistrates,
district judges, collectors and registrars, besides the miscellaneous
duties which fall to the principal district officer as representative of
government. Subordinate to the deputy commissioners are assistant
commissioners, extra-assistant commissioners and myooks, who are invested
with various magisterial, civil and revenue powers, and hold charge of the
townships, as the units of regular civil and revenue jurisdiction are
called, and the sub-divisions of districts, into which most of these
townships are grouped. Among the salaried staff of officials, the townships
officers are the ultimate representatives of government who come into most
direct contact with the people. Finally, there are the village headmen,
assisted in Upper Burma by elders, variously designated according to old
custom. Similarly in the towns, there are headmen of wards and elders of
blocks. In Upper Burma these headmen have always been revenue collectors.
The system under which in towns headmen of wards and elders of blocks are
appointed is of comparatively recent origin, and is modelled on the village
system.

The Shan States were declared to be a part of British India by notification
in 1886. The Shan States Act of 1888 vests the civil, [Sidenote: The Shan
States.] criminal and revenue administration in the chief of the state,
subject to the restrictions specified in the _sanad_ or patent granted to
him. The law to be administered in each state is the customary law of the
state, so far as it is in accordance with the justice, equity and good
conscience, and not opposed to the spirit of the law in the rest of British
India. The superintendents exercise general control over the administration
of criminal justice, and have power to call for cases, and to exercise wide
revisionary powers. Criminal jurisdiction in cases in which either the
complainant or the defendant is a European, or American, or a government
servant, or a British subject not a native of a Shan State, is withdrawn
from the chiefs and vested in the superintendents and assistant
superintendents. Neither the superintendents nor the assistant
superintendents have power to try civil