Shwebo District, 1908
Contents |
Shwebo District
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Shwebo District
Physical aspects
A dry zone District of the Sagaing Division oi Upper Burma, lying between 22 n / and 23 52' N. and 94 50' and 96 1' E., with an area of 5,634 square miles. It is bounded on the north by Katha ; on the east by the Ruby Mines and Mandalay Districts ; on the south by Sagaing; and on the west by the Upper and Lower Chindwin Districts. The Mu, flowing down from the north, divides it into almost equal portions east and west, and the Irrawaddy forms the boundary on the east. It is for the most part a wide, almost rectangular plain running north and south, dotted with thin bushes and scrub jungle, with a low ridge aspects* of hills known as the Minwim range skirting the Irrawaddy in the east, and with small isolated clumps of rising ground in the north and north-east, and fringes of forest-clad upland in the west and north-west. The level is generally uniform and somewhat unin- teresting ; but the river-side villages with their pagodas and monasteries, and the interior plain, viewed from the crest of the Minwun range, are not without a picturesqueness of their own. The most important rivers are the IRRAWAPDY and the Mu. The former enters the District near its north-eastern corner, and flows due south till it reaches Kabwet, about half-way down the eastern border. Here it bends westwards for a few miles, and again turning, runs south for a further stretch till it enters Sagaing District. It is navigable all the year round by river steamers of the deepest draught. The Mu is full of snags, and, except in the rains, is navigable only in its lower reaches. Running in a tortuous channel through arid country, it dwindles away in the dry season to a rivulet fordable everywhere along its course, though at the appropriate season it is freely used for timber-floating. The principal lakes are the Mahananda, the Halin (or Thayaing), the Kadu, and the Thamantha. The first, north-east of Shwebo town, fed by the old Mu canal, is the largest. The other three, lying south of Shwebo, are shallow meres depending on the drainage from the adjacent country, but are rarely dry, though they seldom have much water in them.
The surface of the District is, to a great extent, covered by the alluvium of the Mu river, from beneath which rise low undulating hills of sandstone of Upper Tertiary (pliocene) age. To the east these are brought down by a great fault against crystalline rocks, gneiss, granite, and crystalline limestone, which form the Minwun range. The alluvium is largely impregnated with salt. Coal occurs in the Tertiary beds.
From a botanical point of view the District is very poor. Only three kinds of bamboos are found : namely, thaikwa (Bambusa Tu!da\ myimva (Dendrocalamus strictus\ and tinwa (Cephalostachyum per- gracile). The most important trees are teak (Tectona grandis\ in Dipterocarpiis tuberculatus), thitya (Shorea obtusd), thitsl (Melanorrhoea usitata), yinma (Chickrassia tabitlaris\ ingyin (Pen f acme siamensis\ pyingado (Xylia dolabriformis\ ska (Acacia Catechu), and tanaung (Acada kucophloea}. Further details regarding the vegetation will be found under the head of Forests.
The wild animals are the elephant, the bison, the hsaing (Bos son- daicus), the hog deer, the sdmbar, the barking-deer, the brow-antlered deer (Cervus eldi\ the wild hog, the hare, the jackal (Cam's aureus\ the jungle dog (Cyon rutilans), and the common tree cat or palm-civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). Tigers are scarce, but leopards are common everywhere; and during the cold season water-fowl abound. Quail visit the District in the rains, and the jungle-fowl and francolin breed and are plentiful.
The climate is good, except in the north and north-west, where it is malarious. The heat in the dry season is very great, as elsewhere in the dry zone, but is less intense in the north and north-west of the District. The mean temperature recorded at Shwebo is 80, the ther- mometer readings varying from 56 in January to 104 in May. The rainfall is scanty and irregular, except in the north and north-west. The average varies from 29 to 49 inches, but the maximum would, no doubt, be higher if a record were kept in the hilly tracts. The rainfall follows the valleys of the Irrawaddy and Mu 5 and leaves the rest of the District comparatively dry.
History
According to tradition, Shwebo town was founded by a hunter (Burmese, moksd] named Nga Po at the end of the sixteenth century, and was then called Moksongapoywa. It was from 18 ory " this hunter ancestor that Alaungpaya (Alompra), the redoubtable Burmese conqueror, traced his descent. The warrior king, who is said to have been born in the hunter's village, fortified the place after he had risen from obscurity to prominence, surrounded it with a moat and walls, and made it his capital after his successful rebellion against the Talaings. None of the successors of Alaungpaya ever used Shwebo as a capital for any length of time; but it was with the aid of men from this District that prince Tharrawaddy displaced Bagyidavv from the throne, and Mindon successfully rebelled against his half- brother Pagan Min ; while the Shwebo people maintained their charac- ter as king-makers by supporting Mindon against the futile rebellion of the Myingun and Padein princes, When the British force first marched into Shwebo, after the annexation of Upper Burma, the kayaing wun (the chief official of the place) submitted with all his subordinates, and greatly assisted the administration by putting down the organized dacoit bands- under the leadership of the notorious Hia U and others, which kept the District more or less disturbed for five years after the occupation. A good deal of the western portion of Shwebo then formed a separate District known as Ye-u, which was split up in 1895, the greater part of its area being incorporated in Shwebo.
Population
The principal pagodas are the Shwetaza at Shwebo, the Ingyindaw at Seikkun, the Shwekugyi at Myedu, and the Thihadaw" at Kabwet. Shwebo is rich in archaeological remains, as the old walled towns, the ruined shrines, and the inscribed marble slabs that are found scattered all over the District testify ; but the country has not yet been thoroughly studied from an archaeological point of view.
The only town is SHWEBO, the head-quarters. Ye-u is one of the most densely populated townships in Upper Burma; and the other central townships, Shwebo and Kinu, are thickly inhabited, their density contrasting forcibly with that of the Kyunhla township, which occupies the north-west corner of the District. There has been con- siderable immigration from the Mandalay and Lower Chindwin Dis- tricts, and the number of persons born in India who were enumerated here in 1901 was about 2,600. This number constitutes a compara- tively small proportion of the representatives of the Indian religions, who in 1901 included 4,300 Musalmans and 1,600 Hindus. Shwebo town and cantonment contain between 1,000 and 1,500 natives of India ; but a large number of the Musalmans are indigenous Zairbadis, known sometimes as Myedu kalas, who are found here and there, especially in what used to be the Myedu township. The majority of the population is Buddhist, and nearly 99 per cent, talk Burmese.
The Burman population in 1901 was 280,700, or over 97 per cent. of the total. The other indigenous races are represented by less than 1,000 Shans in the northern areas.
No less than 216,686 persons, or 75 per cent, of the total population, were in 1901 engaged in, or dependent upon, agriculture. Owing to the frequent failure of the rains, the cultivator has to supplement his income by selling firewood, bamboos, and timber, by extracting resin oil, by making mats and thatch, or by working as a cooly on the railway or on the Shwebo Canal 3 or as a field-labourer in other Districts ; but with the beginning of the monsoon he drifts back to his ancestral fields.
Christians are fairly numerous; their total in 1901 was 2,493, including 1,328 Roman Catholics. The Roman communion has long been at work in the District. It has its head-quarters at Monhla and Chanthaywa, possesses several churches, and ministers to n Chris- tian villages, in which it keeps up vernacular schools. The Anglican (S.P.G.) Mission at Shwebo was started in 1887. It maintains a church and an Anglo-vernacular school. Altogether, 1,555 f tne Christians are natives.
Agriculture
The soil varies from a stiff black cotton soil to light sand, and the surface from rich ravines annually fertilized by leaf-mould washed down from the neighbouring highlands to sterile ridges (tons) of alkali and gravel. The rainfall is precarious throughout the greater part of the District, but is fairly reliable in the hilly areas in the north and north-west. The husbandman in Shwebo is as conservative and short-sighted as elsewhere in Burma, and makes rice his main crop, in defiance of the varying soil and the fickle rain supply. On the southern and south-western borders, however, sesa- mum, millet, and a little cotton are grown ; and the alluvial formations of the rivers are covered in the dry season with island crops of various kinds, such as peas and beans, tobacco, onions, brinjals, tomatoes, gram, and the like. Rice is cultivated in the usual manner, except in the Tabayin and Ye-u townships, where the fields are ploughed dry, and the seed is sown broadcast and left to mature without trans- planting.
The area cultivated depends entirely upon the local rainfall, and thus varies very considerably from year to year. In 1890-1 about 372 square miles were under crop, in 1891-2 only 130 square miles, a total which increased steadily till 1897-8, excluding the bad year 1895-6. There was a large increase in 1899-1900, and by 1900-1 the cultivated area had risen to 645 square miles, but this total fell to 239 square miles in 1902-3. The main agricultural statistics for 1903-4 are given in the table on the next page, in square miles.
The promise of the early rains caused the increase in 1903-4, but of the total shown above no less than 167 square miles failed to mature, Rice was sown on 432 square miles. Comparatively little may in (or hot-season) rice is grown. Peas of various kinds covered 15 square miles, and sesamum 42 square miles, and 1,200 acres were under cotton, a small area as compared with that in the neighbouring Dis- tricts of Sagaing and Lower Chindwin. Cultivation is increasing year by year, fallow lands ever being brought under cultivation ; and, but for climatic causes, the increase would have been by leaps and bounds.
There is not much experimenting in new and untried products. Natives of India have attempted to cultivate gram on alluvial lands, but have failed hitherto, owing to want of rain. American maize and tobacco (Virginia and Havana) were tried on Sheinmaga Island in 1900, and were fairly successful so far as out-turn was concerned; but they offered no inducement to the husbandman, as their quality was considered inferior to that of the local varieties. Agricultural advances are made regularly, the average for the four years ending 1905 being about Rs. 16,000, but cultivators often find some difficulty in furnishing the required security. Instances in which borrowers have had to share the loan with their sureties have come to light ; and it is said that, without some accommodation of this kind, security would often not be forthcoming. Some villages have, however, benefited largely by means of Government loans, and on the whole the advances may be said to be popular.
Oxen and buffaloes are bred in the ordinary haphazard fashion. Not a single bull is kept for breeding. A few half-bred stallions are kept for stud purposes, but they are really unfit for breeding. Sheep and goats are reared exclusively by natives of India, and their numbers are trifling.
Irrigation is at present effected by means of the old Mu canal and numerous tanks. The former used to take off from the Mu river, and crossed several streams which were temporarily dammed and diverted into it, but now only that portion of the canal is kept up which does not intersect the larger waterways. The present catchment area is comparatively small, and the water-supply depends on local rainfall, so that when rain fails the woik is of little use, In a favourable year, on the other hand, it gets too full, and fear of a breach of the embankment occasionally makes it necessary to open the sluices, with the result that the water flows over and deluges the already inundated fields. The Shwebo Canal, opened in 1906, has been designed to draw a large quantity of water from the Mu ; and as it will be possible to control it effectually, it should prove an invaluable irrigation work. The cost of the work was 51 lakhs, and the area irrigable is 295 square miles. The principal tanks are at Hladaw, Payan, Palaing, Kywezin, Gyogya, Yinba, Pindin, Kanthaya, Yatha, and Taze. Their catchment area, like that of the old Mu canal, is small, and they depend solely on the rainfall and the drainage from the adjacent country. At certain times they have a reserve of water which may prove really useful, but such occasions are very rare. In 1903-4 about 97 square miles, mostly under rice, were irrigated, Of this total, 18,800 acres obtained their water-supply from tanks, 5,000 acres from wells, and 39,100 acres from Government canals, These last had irrigated only 4,000 acres in the previous year (1902-3), the increase in 1903-4 being due to the im- provements made in the old Mu canal, assisted by propitious rainfall. The irrigated lands lie almost entirely in the Shwebo subdivision and the Tabayin township.
Forests
The only two large fisheries are the Bandiba and the Kyauksaung in the Irrawaddy.
Shwebo is included in the Mu Forest division, which also comprises Sagaing and a part of Katha. The forests are confined to the north and north-west, and are of two kinds, teak and cutch. In the former, padauk (Pterocarpus indicus) and in (Dipteroearpus tubemtlatus) are also found to some extent. The Yabin and Kanbalu Reserves are the only ones in the District. In the former the planting of teak, to the extent of a square mile, has been carried out successfully. In the latter experiments have been tried with sandal-wood seed, which germinated well, though the young plants have suffered from the attacks of insects and rodents. The area of 1 reserved' forests is 595 square miles, of which 10 square miles are cutch, and the rest teak, with a sprinkling of padauk and indaing. The area of the 'unclassed' forests is 2,107 square miles \ and it has been proposed to convert 83 square miles of these into a cutch Reserve, though the final settlement has not yet been completed. The chief minor forest products are thitsi (resin oil), cutch, and bamboos, all of which are abundant. Five Chinese firms are engaged in the cutch trade, and their business is brisk. The forest revenue in 1903-4 was nearly a lakh and a half.
Coal was worked from 1892 to 1903 by the Burma Coal Mines Company at Letkokpin, 6 miles from Kabwet on the Irrawaddy, by means of shaftings, the hauling being done by steam, The mines were capable of turning out 2,000 tons monthly, but the Burma Railways Company were the chief purchasers, consuming about 800 tons a month. The mine has now been shut down. A prospecting licence for rubies, gold, and silver has been issued, and leases of land for the purpose of boring for earth-oil have been granted ; but though good petroleum has been obtained, the wells, which are in the Kyunhla township, have been abandoned owing to the unhealthiness of the place. Salt is extracted from brine-wells in the Kanbalu, Shwebo, and Sheinmaga townships. The average earnings of the workers are four annas a day, and the salt produced is used locally, besides being exported to other Districts. Pottery clay exists in places. Gravel, laterite, and sandstone are extracted, mostly by natives of India, to meet local demands on account of public works.
Trade and Communication
Silk-weaving is carried on at Chiba and Seikkun in the Shwebo township. The produce of the village looms holds its own, in spite of the competition of imported fabrics, which, though cheaper, are far less strong and durable. The method of working is purely Burmese, and the patterns have improved greatly in design of late. For weaving pur- poses raw silk (Indian or Chinese) is brought from Mandalay, and the articles turned out are mainly pasos (waistcloths) of various kinds. Articles other than pasos are wpven only when special orders have been given. The dyeing of the raw silk is largely done on the spot. The manufacture of pottery is practised all the year round at Kyauk- myaung, Shwegun, Shwedaik, and a few other villages on the Irra- waddy by professional potters ; elsewhere it is carried on only during the dry months of the year as a subsidiary occupation by agriculturists. Unglazed pottery is manufactured in the ordinary way from clay mixed with sand, and fired in heaps that are coated with clay. If black instead of the usual red ware is required, bran is poured on the burn- ing heap and the articles are coloured by the smoke. In the manu- facture of glazed pottery, the only essential difference is the smearing of the green pots with what is known as chaw, the slag left after silver has been extracted from lead ore. The making of glazed pots is a more profitable industry than that of unglazed, as it is attended with less breakage. In the Kanbalu township a considerable section of the population are engaged during the dry season in weaving mats and rough baskets of various kinds. Tantabin is the centre of the mat and basket industry.
The principal exports are salt, which is taken by local traders in boats to Katha from Sheinmaga" and Thitseingyi on the Irrawaddy, and cutch, sent by rail to Rangoon by a few Chinese firms which have been established in the District since the opening of the cutch forests. Pulse is sent out in boats by merchants living on the Irra- waddy and the Mu ; rice and European goods come in by rail, prin- cipally from Mandalay ; and sesamum oil in carts from the Sagaing and Lower Chindwin Districts, Boats fetch tobacco from Sagaing, Myingyan, and Pakokku; ngapi (fish-paste) is brought by rail from Mandalay and in boats from the deltaic Districts of Lower Burma; and rice comes by rail from Kawlin and Wuntho in the neighbouring District of Katha. As Shwebo District is poor, the wants of the people are confined for the most part to these main articles of consumption.
The chief centres for boats are Kyaukmyaung, Thitseingyi, and Shein- maga on the Irrawaddy, and Mugan, Sinin, and Ye-u on the Mu. The jaggery sugar from the Ye-u subdivision is exported in carts to Katha, where it finds a ready sale owing to its damp-resisting pro- perties. Mandalay supplies the raw Chinese or Indian silk used by the silk-weavers of the District.
The Burma Railway runs through the heart of Shwebo, linking Myitkyina* with Mandalay, and serving the whole District, as from almost every station a road branches out either east to the Irra- waddy or west to the Mu. The Public Works department main- tains 48 miles of metalled, and 203 miles of unmetalled roads. The principal metalled roads are from Shwebo to Kyaukmyaung (17 miles), connecting the Mu valley with the Irrawaddy, and from Kinu to Ye-u (13 miles). The most important unmetalled tracks are from Kinu to Kabwet on the Irrawaddy 9 miles below Thabeikkyin, whence an important metalled road climbs to Mogok, the head-quarters of the Ruby Mines District ; from Ye-u to Paga on the Upper Chindwin border ; and from Ye-u to Saingbyin on the Lower Chindwin border. The District fund keeps up 86 miles of unmetalled roads. The Irra- waddy is navigable all the year round, and the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company's express and cargo steamers between Mandalay and Bhamo call at Kyaukmyaung and at Kabwet every week in each direction. The ferry steamer plying between Mandalay and Thabeikkyin also calls at those two stations, as well as at Sheinmaga and Thitseingyi, twice a week in each direction. The Mu is navigable in the rains by native craft to the borders of Katha District. There are five ferries across the Irrawaddy, and eleven across the Mu, at convenient dis- tances from each other.
Famine
Its capricious rainfall always renders the District liable to partial scarcity, but the only serious failure of crops that has occurred in Famine recent 7 ears wa in 1891. Ye-u was then a separate
District, comprising the present Ye-u subdivision and the Kyunhla township, and it was in the former area that the distress was most acute. It was due to a series of bad harvests caused by deficient rainfall, and pressed all the more heavily on the people because they had not then fully recovered from the effects of the troublous times that followed close on annexation. Many of the vil- lagers were compelled to sell their cattle to procure food, to resort to roots as a means of subsistence, and to emigrate to the Lower province and to the Ruby Mines District for their living. Relief works were not opened on the east of the Mu, as the railway afforded ample employment there for the able-bodied, but they were started in Ye-u. Advances were liberally made to cultivators to enable them to buy seed and to retain their cattle, partial or total remissions and sus- pensions of revenue were granted, while rice was imported by Govern- ment and distributed at cost price, and gratuitous relief was given to the disabled. Fortunately the famine was of short duration.
Administration
The District contains three subdivisions : Shwebo, Kanbalu, and Ye-u. The first comprises the SHWEBO, KINU, and SHEINMAGA town- ships, the second the KANBALU and KYUNHLA town ships, and the third the YE-U, TABAYIN, TAMADAW, and TAZE townships. The subdivisions and townships are in charge of the usual executive officers, under whom are 884 village headmen. Of the latter, 258 are subordinate to circle headmen. Shwebo forms (with Sagaing District) a Public Works division, with two subdivisional officers in the District ; and the forests are included in the Mu Forest division.
As elsewhere, the subdivisional and township courts are presided over by the subdivisional and township officers concerned, but the latter do not try suits relating to immovable property or to any right or interest in such property. At District head-quarters, the treasury officer is additional judge of the Shwebo township court as well as head-quarters magistrate. Litigation is normal and crime is on the whole light. Dacoity, murder, and cattle-theft are infrequent, and opium cases are few. Ordinary thefts and excise and gambling cases, for the most part committed in Shwebo town and its suburbs, are, on the other hand, fairly numerous.
Prior to the reign of Mindon Min there was no organized scheme of revenue collection in Shwebo; that monarch, however, introduced some kind of system into the methods of the rapacious officials. Thathameda was then for the first time levied, royal lands were taxed on a uniform scale of one-fourth of the produce, and imposts were placed on monopolies, carts, fisheries, and other sources of income. After annexation the thathameda continued to be levied on much the same system as before. The land revenue administration is at present in a state of transition. Most of the District is occupied under the ordinary bobabaing (non-state) and state land tenures, which are com- mon to all the dry zone Districts of Upper Burma. In the Kyunhla township the conditions were at one time peculiar. Tradition relates that about three -centuries ago the country here was waste, and that a number of enterprising hunters from the west of the low range of hills which now separates Shwebo from the Upper Chindwin District, finding the basin of the Mu more promising for cultivation than their own land in the neighbourhood of the Chindwin, moved over and established themselves in what afterwards became the Indaing and Kyunhla shwekmu-ships and the Inhla, Mawke, and Mawton vtyos. The descendants of these settlers were known as tawyathas^ < jungle-- owners ' or 'natives,' and they alone acquired absolute ownership of la-nd. Strangers who came afterwards to settle in this area are said to have been able to work land only with the permission of the native who owned it, and when they moved out of one jurisdiction into another they forfeited all claim to their fields. As a general rule, a native who moved elsewhere retained absolute ownership of his holdings, even after severing his connexion with the locality; but in the northern areas of Indauktha, Seywa, and Mettaung he lost his proprietary right when he moved out of his myo. These peculiar tenures have now been swept away; the land in the three northern my os having been made state land en bloc^ that in the southern areas being treated partly as bobabaing and partly as state. The survey of the District was completed in 1895; in 3,090 square miles out of a total area of 5,634. Settlement operations were commenced at the end of 1900, and are still in progress. The average area of a holding is from 15 to 20 acres. The revenue history of Shwebo presents no marked features, except the continual reductions in the thathameda rates of assessment, and the frequent remissions of revenue rendered necessary by the precarious nature of the rainfall. At present only state land is assessed to revenue, the rate being one-third of the pro- duce in the Tantabin and Yatha circles of the Kanbalu township, one-sixth of the produce in the Kyunhla township, Rs, 2 an acre in the Ye-u subdivision, and one-fourth of the produce in the rest of the District. Water rate is taken from lands which receive water from a Government irrigation work at from R, i to Rs, 2-8 per acre, according to the fertility of the land irrigated.
The following table exhibits the fluctuations in the revenue since 1890-1, in thousands of rupees. Thathameda is at present the main source of revenue. It rose from Rs. 4,64,000 in 1891 to Rs. 6,11,000 in 1901, but fell to Rs. 5,17,000 in 1903-4. needs such as roads, </<&-bungalows, &c., was Rs. 21,000 in 1903-4, and the chief item of expenditure was Rs. 21,000 on public works. The municipality of SHWEBO is the only one in the District.
Soon after annexation, both European and Native troops were stationed at Shwebo, and at Kyaukmyaung on the Irrawaddy, which, previous to the building of the railway, was the key to the District ; and in 1888 a cantonment was established at Shwebo. It is situated to the north-east of the town on high ground and on a very healthy site. With the pacification of the country the Native troops were gradually withdrawn, and a reduction followed in the strength of the European troops, who during the last five years have numbered only five companies. Shwebo is the head-quarters of a company of the Upper Burma Volunteer Rifles, drawn from the Shwebo, Katha, Bhamo, and Myitkyina Districts.
The District Superintendent of police is assisted by subdivisional police officers, who are either Assistant Superintendents or inspectors, and by a head-quarters inspector. The sanctioned strength of the force is 473 men, consisting of 16 head constables, 37 sergeants, and 420 constables, posted at 13 police stations and 18 outposts. Shwebo is the head-quarters of a military police battalion, and the sanctioned strength of the force serving within the limits of the District is 495 men, of whom 415 are stationed at Shwebo, 30 at Kanbalu, and 50 at Ye-u. There is a District jail at Shwebo, with accommodation for 237 males and 3 females. Wheat-grinding is the only important industry carried on within its walls, the flour turned out by the prisoners being consumed by the military police.
The proportion of literate persons in 1901 was 50 per cent, in the case of males and 2 per cent, in that of females, or 25 per cent, for both sexes together figures which place Shwebo in the very front rank of the Districts of Burma from an educational point of view. The chief educational institution is the All Saints' S.P.G. Mission school at Shwebo. Among the purely vernacular schools, which are mainly responsible for the high standard of literacy, two lay institutions in Shwebo town and two monastic schools at Tabayin and Kanbauk deserve special mention. Altogether there were n secondary, 142 primary, and 694 elementary (private) schools in the District in 1904, with a total of 9,175 male and 954 female scholars, as compared with 1,678 pupils in 1891 and 6,583 in 1901, The expenditure on educa- tion in 1903-4 amounted to Rs. 12,500. To this total Provincial funds contributed Rs. 9,000, fees Rs. 2,200, subscriptions Rs. 700, and the Shwebo municipality Rs. 600.
There are 3 hospitals and one dispensary, with accommodation for 62 inmates. In 1903 the number of cases treated was 15,890, includ- ing 662 in-patients, and 244 operations were performed. The annual cost is about Rs. 9,500, towards which municipal funds contributed Rs. 3,300 in 1903 and Provincial funds Rs. 4,500, the dispensary being maintained by the railway.
Vaccination is compulsory within Shwebo municipal limits. The operation is so popular among the people that the number of vaccina- tors has of late been increased from two to eight for the whole District. In 1903-4 the number of persons vaccinate^ was 11,799, representing 41 per 1,000 of the population.
