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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 21, p. 336.

336 R UR Y MIN.PS DISTRICT ships of Thabeikkyin and Mogok are directly under the subdivisional officers concerned. - The Kodaung township is administered by a civil officer, generally a member of the Provincial Service, who is under the direct control of the Deputy-Commissioner, and exercises certain powers under the Kachin Hill Tribes Regulation, 18,95. The District forms a subdivision of the Mandalay Public Works division (which includes the greater part of Mandalay District), and is nearly conterminous with the Ruby Mines Forest division. There are 261 village headmen, of whom l i are subordinate headmen, receiving no commission. A num- 'ber of them exercise special civil and criminal powers. The civil courts are presided over by the executive officers, the treasury officer at Mogok acting as additional judge of the Mogok township court. As the District is situated on the borders of China and the Shan States, and peopled to a large extent by non-Burmans, a large traffic in smuggled opium is carried on, and offences against the Opium Act are consequently common. Similarly, breaches of the Upper Burma Ruby Regulation, a special local law applicable to the stone tract, are numerous. The District is made up of various old Burmese jurisdictions, where in former days a variety of revenue methods were in force. What is now the Mogok subdivision consisted of three administrative areas known as sos, which sometimes were independent jurisdictions, each under its own sothugyi, and sometimes formed the combined charge of a Burmese official known as the thonsowun. This area was treated practically as a royal demesne, and was to all intents and purposes farmed out to the wun. The rent, which in theory was fixed but in practice was fluctuating, was paid in kind ; and to obtain the requisite supply of precious stones the wun levied a stone cess or kyaukdaing on those who mined and traded in rubies, and a mindaing or royal,;cess , on those who did not. The kyaukdaing was paid in rubies; and the stones, duly diminished by what the wun thought might with' safety be appropriated, were remitted to the court at Mandalay. The mindaing was designed to stimulate the production of stones; it was collected in cash, and was employed in making advances to the miners and in paying the wun's subordinates. There was no, land tax in the District under Burmese rule,, though a nominal assessment of one-third of .the gross produce on rice land in the Mogok valley was used to gauge the capacity of the cultivators to pay the mindaing. After the annexation of Upper Burma thathameda was at first the only impost, and land revenue was not assessed till after it ad become difficult to prove that the land (which in reality was nearly all state) bad not in part been acquired by private individuals. Revenue rates have varied since land revenue was. first demanded, At present state land in the Mogok subdivision pays 15 per cent., and