304 



MANUAL OF THE NILAQIRI DISTRICT. 



CHAP. XII 



Recent 



HiSTOHY. 



Grovernment 

 decline to 

 make the 

 transfer. 



The Com- 

 mandant 

 appointed 

 Joint Magis 

 trate and 

 District 

 Munsif. 



• The Government however determined in July 1839 that sufficient ' 

 ^ grounds had not been adduced for the change, remarking that the 

 objections urged by the Collectors of Malabar and Coimbatore 

 thereto were equally strong and conclusive. This resolution was 

 passed in Mr. Sullivan's absence, but he recorded a long minute 

 of protest. In this paper he urged, as additional reasons, that 

 the land tenure of the Hills differed from that of Malabar, and that 

 the maintenance of a Military Commandant was unnecessarily 

 expensive, and suggested the giving to the Tahsildar the powers 

 of a District Munsif and of appointing a Civil Assistant. He also 

 urged the expediency of employing the Coimbatore engineering 

 staff instead of that of Malabar. Nothing was done. The 

 matter came up again the following year in consequence of a 

 dispute between two villages on the new Coonoor road, Bikhatti 

 and Yellannalle, situated on the boundary line of Peranganad and 

 Mekandd. In connection with this case Mr. Conolly, the ill-fated 

 Collector of Malabar, recommended the appointment of a District 

 Munsif on the hills. "Formerly,'' he writes, "all differences were 

 settled by the Burghers among themselves. The influx of strangers, 

 and the altered state of their society, has led them, as appears 

 from the present instance, not to be always satisfied with this 

 simple mode of administering justice." 



The result, however, was a partial reform ; the Commandant 

 was appointed Joint Magistrate to the Magistrates of Malabar 

 ■ and Coimbatore, and also District Munsif. These changes appear 

 to have been, in a measure, due to instructions from home. 

 Colonel King, who had succeeded Colonel Crewe, resigned shortly 

 afterwards (November 1840), and Colonel Jennings, his assistant, 

 was appointed in his room by Lord Elphinstone, with the 

 designation of Staff Officer of Ootacamand, on the same allow- 

 ances, a designation which was again changed to Officer Com- 

 manding the Hills by the Marquis of Tweeddale in 1843. The 

 Staff Officer was to be aided by two assistants, one of whom was 

 in charge of the roads, the other of the post offices and other 

 miscellaneous offices. All hill officers however were, under the 

 imperative instructions of the Honorable Court (Despatch, 2nd 

 March 1842), to hold office for two years only, and to be chosen 

 from officers in the low country whose health required the 

 change of climate. At this time also Lord Elphin&tone had in 

 contemplation the location of a European corps on the Hills, and 

 one of the reasons for changing the designation of the resident 

 officer was that he might have to be superseded by the officer 

 commanding the corps. The Hills were still regarded less 

 as a sphere for British enterprise than as a home for British 

 troops. 



