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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 16, p. 103.

ADMINISTRATION 103 The District is in charge of a Deputy-Commissioner, aided by eight Assistant and Extra-Assistant Commissioners,,of , whom one is the subdivisional officer in charge of the Kasur outpost. Administration. are four tahsils, each under a tahsilddr and . a nalb-tahsilddr. Lahore is the head-quarters of the Deputy-Inspector- General of Police, Central Range, an Assistant Conservator of Forests,. a Superintending Engineer, and two Executive Engineers of the Canal department, The Deputy-Commissioner as District Magistrate is responsible for criminal justice, while civil judicial work is under a District judge, supervised by the Divisional and Sessions, Judge of the Lahore Civil Division, which includes this District only. The District judge is assisted by a Subordinate judge and four Munsifs, one for each tahsil, those for Lahore and Sharakpur both sitting at Lahore, and those for Kasur and Chunian at the tahsil head-quarters. A Small Cause Court judge also sits at Lahore. The criminal work of the District is heavy. Daeoities have, however, decreased of late, owing to the strenuous measures that have been taken in conjunction with the Ferozepore local authorities to suppress them. The Sikhs collected revenue in their usual way-taking one-quarter of the gross produce in kind, or levying acreage. rates in cash on the more valuable crops, while in some cases Rs. 12 was paid in a lump sum on the land irrigated by a single well. A great part of the District was granted in jdgir, and the land reserved by the State was partly farmed out to lessees, who exacted the legal amount. and as much more as they dared. The cultivator, whether owner or not, was responsible for the revenue, and the distinction between owner and occupier was. hardly recognized. After annexation in 1849, a summary settlement was made, based on a deduction of io per cent, from the assumed value of the. kind rents taken by the Sikhs. In each tahsil, however, the reduced assessment was pitched too high. The demand was rigid and payable in cash, so that, when prices began to fail rapidly, a bad harvest in 1851 completed the general distress and amplified the growing distrust of the British revenue system. : The _regular settlement..began in 1"852 with grants of large, ad Mtera'm . reductions to the distressed villages, whereby the people were induced to return to: their homes. The settlement 'report; completed in 1856, showed an all-round deduction of o per, cent..on the summary settlement. The relief thus given seems to have been sufficient; and the rise in prices which followed on the drought of 1861 made the -assessment, very moderate, o. that by 1864 the resources of the people had generally doubled. The revised' settlement took one, sixth of the gross value of the produce as the'share of Government, and distributed the result thus obtained over all villages by an acreage rate.