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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 22, p. 332.

332 SIALKOT DISTRICT England; but, though an excellent fibre was raised in the District, the difficulty of procuring good seed and the apathy of the peasantry caused the enterprise to prove a failure after some years' trial. Sialkot town is the only important centre of commerce, and receives such surplus raw produce as the District produces, most of which is consumed in the town and cantonment. The chief exports are rice, sugar, paper, cotton, cloth, and brass vessels; and the chief imports are grain, rice, tobacco, ahi, timber, and tea, besides the various neces saries for the British troops in cantonments. There is a branch of the Alliance Bank of Simla at Sialkot: A branch of what is now the North-Western Railway from Wazirabad to Sialkot, a distance of 27 miles, was opened for traffic in 188o, and its continuation to Jammu in 189o. The principal metalled road runs parallel to the railway ,from Wazirabad to Jammu. An important metalled road connects Sialkot and Amritsar. The chief unmetalled roads are from Sialkot to Gurdaspur, to Gujranwala, and via Eminabad to Lahore. The total length of metalled roads is 56 miles, and, of umnetalled roads 785 miles; of these, 24 miles of metalled and 29 of unmetalled roads are under the Public Works department, and the rest are maintained by the District board. The Chenab is crossed by nine ferries and the Ravi by five, but there is little traffic on either river. The District was visited by famine in 1783; 1812, 1843, and 1861. Neither in 187o nor 1878 did it suffer severely, and with the extension Famine. of well-irrigation that has taken place in the last . twenty years it is believed to have become practically secure. The crops matured in the famine year 1899-19oo amounted to 63 per cent. of the normal. The District is in charge of a Deputy-Commissioner, aided by five Assistant or Extra-Assistant Commissioners, of whom one is in charge Administration. the District treasury. The tahsils of Sialkot, . Zafarwal, Raya, Daska, and Pasrur are each under a tahsildar and a naib-tahsilddr. Sialkot is the head-quarters of a Superintending Engineer and two Executive Engineers of the Canal department. The Deputy-Commissioner as District Magistrate is responsible for criminal justice, and civil judicial work is under a District Judge: Both officers are supervised by the Divisional Judge of the Sialkot Civil Division, who is also Sessions Judge. The District judge has one Subordinate judge and five Munsifs under him, one at head- quarters and one at each outlying tahsi4 A cantonment magistrate is posted to Sialkot cantonment. The District is singularly free from serious crime, despite the large number of Sansis and other criminal tribes domiciled in it.