TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
173 
is here stated as an annual contribution, but, as 
already mentioned, it is not so. It is true that 
perhaps no year passes without the levying either 
of general contributions by the authority of the 
Lut-d’hau, or of unauthorized ones by the local 
officers, the latter by far the most frequent; but 
there exists nothing, as far as the Burmese and 
Talains are concerned, like a permanent and pe¬ 
riodical public tax of this nature. The theory of 
the Government, in fact, although not its practice, 
would seem to exonerate this portion of the popu¬ 
lation from the payment of direct periodical money- 
taxes, in consideration of the corvees and military 
services it is especially called upon to perform, and 
from which many of the rest of the inhabitants 
are exempted. The large amount of the assess¬ 
ment, on particular occasions, alone renders it im¬ 
probable that the tax should be an annual one. In 
the Burman year 1160, corresponding with 1798, 
the late King of Ava, for example, imposed a ge¬ 
neral contribution upon every house or family. 
This, I presume, would include Aracan, which was 
then amalgamated with the empire; but it would 
exclude, no doubt, the wild races and tributary 
states. The amount in this case was thirty-three 
one third ticals, indiscriminately for every house, 
large and small. It took two years to collect the 
whole contribution, and the amount realized was 
48,000,000 ticals, or 600,000/. sterling. I have 
never heard of any similar measure before or 
