MUNICIPAL INSTITUTIONS. 265
the next generation by Ganga, Siiraj Mall's Bani, The river front, which is
all that was ever completed, has a high and massive basement story, which on
the land side, as seen from the interior of the court, becomes a mere plinth for
the support of a majestic double cloister with broad and lofty arch and massive
clustered pier. The style is precisely the same as that which prevails in the
Garden Palace at Dig, a work of the same chief; who, however rude and un-
cultured himself, appears to have been able to appreciate and command the ser-
vices of the highest available talent whether in the arts of war or peace. His son,
Ratn Siiih, would seem to have inherited his father's architectural proclivities, for
he had commenced what promised to be a very large and handsome mausoleum
for the reception of his own funeral ashes, but died, before the work had advanced
beyond the first story. This is in one of the large gardens outside the town
beyond the Madan Mohan temple, and has not been touched since Ms
death.
A few years ago the town was exceedingly dirty and ill kept, but this state
of things ceased from the introduction of a municipality. The conservancy
arrangements are now of a most satisfactory character, and all the streets of any
importance have been either paved or metalled. This unambitious, but most
essential, work has, up to the present time, absorbed almost all the surplus in-
come; the only exception being a. house, intended to serve both for muni-
cipal meetings and also for the reception of European visitors, which
I had not quite completed at the time of my transfer. It is in Indian style
with carved stone pillars and arches to the verandahs and pierced tracery in
the windows. As the ground about it had also been taken up for a garden,
the whole would have formed a conspicuous ornament to the official quarter of
the town, where all the other buildings are on the conventional and singularly
prosaic D. P. "W. type. Education, as conducted on European principles, has
never made much way in the town, in spitŠ of tlie efforts of the committee to
promote it by the establishment of schools of different grades. Same of these
have been closed altogether. The Tahsili school, completed in 1868 at a cost of
Rs. 3,710, which included a donation of Rs. 500 from Swaoii Kangacharya, the
head of the Seth's temple, still continues and has a room also for some anglo-ver-
nacular classes; but the number of pupils, through variable, is never very large.
The children iiiid it more lucrative and amusing to hang about the temples and
act as guides to the pilgrims and sight-seers. The dispensary, also opened in
ISfitf, cost the small sum of only Rs. 1,943 ; but as yet it has no accommo-
dation for in-door patients. As such a large number of people come to Brinda-
baa simply for the sake of dying there, while of the resident population nearly
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