Experiments are being made under the auspices of the British in the Shan country, in order to introduce the cultivation of new cereals and other products amongst them, and to improve their breed of cattle and sheep. In short, England is trying to do her duty by this naturally magnificent but very backward country, and it may be confidently stated that if any Government could help them on their feet it is the one they now have. The most recent information from the Chief Superintendent of the Shan States, the responsible British officer appointed to look after them, shows that he finds them in a most benighted and backward condition socially and politically, and there will be need for lengthened intervention and much patience and perseverance on the part of the British Government. It is found that there has been no such thing as law in the country, written or unwritten. Everybody does what is right in his own eyes, if he can. The hold which these chiefs have on the territories they are supposed to rule is of the feeblest description; and it will require time for the people to get out of that state of turbulence, unrest and distraction, and for the rulers to acquire power and experience for civil rule. Like incompetent rulers, they try at present to maintain their authority by inflicting most barbarous punishments for the most trivial offences. The Sawbwa of Thibaw is reported to be the only chief among them who exercises any real and active control throughout his state, and he endeavours to enforce the rule that the power of awarding capital punishment shall be restricted to the chiefs. In all the other states the people are fleeced by the minor officials, and criminal justice is administered in a cruel and haphazard fashion. An English traveller recently found the fresh head of a so-called thief posted up in the Mangko bazaar; and in another place through which he travelled a boy of sixteen was summarily killed and barbarously mutilated, on the ground that he had been seen entering a buffalo shed, and was therefore supposed to be attempting cattle-stealing. As a beginning in the way of much-needed reform, our paternal Government has framed for their guidance a few simple rules for the administration of criminal justice, and supplied them to each chieftain, as a sort of alphabet of government for them to learn. I wonder what they think of our notions of justice. They must appear to them unaccountably and unnecessarily lenient towards the prisoner. How it must puzzle them, for instance, to be told that an accused person must be presumed to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty!