to render a good account to their royal master, engaged gangs of bullies, who went about threatening people with violence or false accusations in the law-courts if any but their master were patronised, while the Zay-gyo-daw myowoon, Oo Thah Oh, in virtue of his official position, sent his subordinates to the Chinese gambling-house keepers, and forced them to subscribe periodically for fifty tickets at a couple of rupees each, if they hoped to retain their gambling licenses. Fired by his example, the Yaw Shway-deik and Teing-dat Atwinwoons also made use of their court influence to draw subscribers. Brokers and traders of all nationalities who had business with the palace were put down for a couple of hundred tickets or so, on pain of losing their contracts. One of the woon-douks was advanced and heedless enough to select the Damma-yohn, a place of worship and prayer, for his lottery-office. All the old lines were upset. Drawings were held whenever the lists were filled up, no matter whether it was an oobohnay, or a more sacred feast, and, as a consequence, the minds of the people were kept in a state of perpetual unhealthy excitement.

Neither buyers nor sellers were to be seen in the bazaar. Cultivators sold off their farming stock and implements, and launched all their money into the state lotteries. Fathers sold their daughters, and husbands their wives, to have a final try for fortune, until the lottery managers issued a notice that they would give no more tickets in exchange for women. To fill up the totals faster, and draw in every available coin, twenty, or even more, people were allowed to club together to buy a single ticket. Business was entirely suspended, and all the people hovered about the lottery-offices, longing for the drawing, while cleaned-out speculators prowled about day and night, watching for an opportunity to thieve and

rob. How it was that the plundered people did not rise against the government, or at least against the lottery managers, is a mystery, but they did not. The suburbs of Mandalay were filled for a time with ruined gamblers, until the soldiery were employed to drive them farther afield, when many made their way to the frontier, and recouped themselves by raids on British Burma villages. Eventually money failed, or the people were disillusionised, and the lottery offices, though several are still open, drive but a very slight trade. Then Theebaw Min had to resort to other measures to meet his expenditure, and since July, 1881, has been disposing of monopolies right and left. Having finished the export monopolies, he is commencing with those on imports. The British trade with Upper Burma is being steadily ruined, but the English government will do nothing, notwithstanding the sufficiently known fact that all Burmans whose opinion is worth having, long for the annexation of the whole of Burma Proper to the British flag.

Since the above was written, the monopolies have been abolished, in deference to a remonstrance sent by the Governor-General of India. The abrogation must have cost the king very little concern, for he has received all the money from the unlucky speculators, and it is they alone who suffer. But the people may be expected to derive some little benefit from the renewed freedom of trade.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LAND TENURE.

IN India the Rajah has always been considered the chief proprietor of the soil and the lord paramount over all those who own it or dwell upon it. In Burma precisely the reverse of this system obtains. The king is indeed considered entitled to a share of the produce, and, as a matter of fact, in Burma Proper gets pretty nearly all of it; but the origin of the land tenure rests on an entirely different foundation. The Burmans go back to the first peopling of the earth and the appointment of the saintly Payah Aloung to be ruler over them. Mahah Thamada came after the lands had been pretty generally taken up by the people, and therefore the cultivators of the original thalay san had no intention of appointing him supreme landlord, when they chose him to be the source of the Law and of the administration of justice. He acquired a share of the produce of the country only by the free gift of the people, who, to provide revenues for him, of their own accord surrendered. a tenth part of all their crops that he might be free to devote himself entirely to the management of the public affairs and the execution of the laws. This right to a tithe of the produce of the soil, and no more, is explicitly laid down in the Indian Buddhist code, the Dhamma-that, or laws of

Manoo. This ancient book, which, by the way, is entirely distinct from the Indian Institutes of Manoo, enunciates as follows in the sixth chapter: "The king, who is our ruler, must abide by the ten kingly laws. All land which is unclaimed shall be his, but he shall have no right to take all. Such lands as are cultivated by man, or have been previously reclaimed, shall remain to the cultivator and his heirs. But he shall have a tenth of the produce of all rice-lands, orchards, and gardens; and all excise and ferry duties, as well as canals and public works, shall belong to him. Through a succession of worlds the first king, the great Mahah Thamada, has established onetenth to be his portion for ever, and let this be regarded as an everlasting precedent."

According to the Dhamma-that there are seven methods by which landed property may be acquired. These are as follows:-1. By gift from the king. This is made only to soldiers and officials. 2. By inheritance. 3. By purchase. 4. By allotment from civil officers. 5. By personal reclaiming from the jungle. 6. By gift. 7. By unchallenged occupation for a period of ten years.

The first two titles are called perfect. The remainder are open to question, and may be disputed by any one who can show a prior claim. In actual fact, however, it may be said, that the man who reclaims for himself a piece of land out of the jungle, becomes by his industry proprietor of the clearing, without reference to local authorities, village elders, or any one at all, and has, thereafter, an inalienable right to his tenure, with no dues to pay whatever, except the sum the taik-thoo-gyee may see fit to assess him at. That worthy's valuation, however, always displays an enthusiastic belief in the fertility of the soil. The landed proprietor can dispose of it by gift, or he may sell it; otherwise it descends to his heirs

and assigns in the order of succession; the whole right and title is essentially vested in the owner and the heirs of his body. The tenure is, therefore, by what lawyers call fee-simple, udal, or allodial right. The estate left by the original occupier is seldom broken up. The heirs till parts of it, or gather the whole crop in successive years; so that the land does not require to be split up into infinitesimal parts. This practice is rendered all the easier by the thinness of the population. It is open to any one at any time to carve for himself out of the forest a holding of his own, and thus there is no temptation to break up the original family acres. It is singular that under a rule so completely despotic as that of Burma, where every man is the king's slave, and cannot cross the borders without his permission, the right of land tenure should always have been so fixed and certain. The fondness with which the people cling to their ancestral lands has something of almost religious fervour in its tenacity. As long as a family remains in the neighbourhood of their inheritance nothing will persuade them to give up their connection with it. In Upper Burma, to the present day, land is never sold as the term would be understood in Europe. The transaction, which goes by the name of a sale, is, in reality, a kind of mortgaging, or, more exactly, pawning, if such a term can be used with regard to land.

The estate passes from one occupant to another for a certain sum of money, and it is clearly understood that if at any time the original owner is in a position to reclaim his property he may do so whether the purchaser likes it or not. Farther than this even, the buyer cannot sell the land to a third party without first obtaining the consent of its former owner. Notwithstanding this feeling, however, it is seldom that a property can be found which has remained for any considerable length of time in the same