I 



MANUAL OF THE NILAQIRI DISTRICT. 303 



was purchased by Mr. Casaraajor of the Civil Service, formerly CHAP, XII. 

 Resident at Mysore^ for Rupees 15,000. This gentleman estab- r^^t 

 lished a school here for Badaga children. On his death he left the History. 

 greater portion of his property to the Basel Mission, who subse- 

 quently purchased the houses, which ever since have been the head- 

 quarters of this Mission on the Nilagiris, and a convalescent depot 

 for their agents. 



In the year 1839 Mr. John Sullivan, on a petition from certain Mr. Sullivan 

 Badagas, revived the question of reannexing to Coimbatore that ^'f^^'^ *'"^ . 

 portion of the plateau which had been transferred to Malabar in to Malabar. 

 1830, and not retransf erred in the following year. He urged that 

 whilst this portion was, in regard to magisterial and police 

 administration, under the Collector of Malabar, it was still under the 

 court of Coimbatore, which was within the jurisdiction of the 

 Southern Court of Circuit, whilst the Magistrate of Malabar was 

 under the Western Court of Circuit ; consequently, as Magistrate 

 of the Nilagiris, he was not controlled at all, and the result was 

 that the police were quite unchecked. Moreover, Ootacamand 

 was under a military police, which was in reason whilst it was a 

 military station, but not so now that it was practically a civil one. 

 Further, the authority of the Tahsildar of Ootacamand was limited 

 to the Malabar portion of the plateau, there being no similar 

 functionary in the Coimbatore portion, which was consequently at 

 a great disadvantage. He suggested the appointment of a 

 Civil Assistant after the transfer of the tract to Coimbatore. The 

 Government called on the Principal Collectors of Malabar and 

 Coimbatore to report. The Collector of Coimbatore, Mr. Babington, 

 whilst objecting to some of Mr. Sullivan's assertions and 

 observing that the trade of the Hills was almost wholly with 

 Malabar and Mysore, from which provinces the people drew their 

 food supplies, thought reannexation on the whole desirable, 

 though, in the interests of his own district, he urged that the tract 

 should be constituted an independent district, or if this scheme, 

 on financial grounds, could not be carried out, that it should be 

 made a sub-collectorate. Mr. Underwood, Collector of Malabar, 

 opposed the measure strongly on magisterial, financial, com- 

 mercial and political grounds, holding that it was fraught with 

 danger to his district and our rule there, and was likely to impede 

 the progress of the Hills by separating them from the ports and 

 commercial enterprise of the west coast. The Board of Revenue, 

 however, were in favor of the change, remarking that there was no 

 reason to expect that the revenue under the tobacco monopoly 

 would decline, as urged by Mr. Underwood, if the transfer took 

 place, for the increase in this revenue had been admittedly 

 due to the manufacture of a superior article in Coimbatore and 

 the vigilance of the preventive estabhshment of that district. 



