Slavery, which existed in a mild form until our acquisition of Assam, has ceased under British rule.
Administration.—The administrative statistics of the province will be given separately for each of the ten dis tricts mentioned in the foregoing table under their alpha betical headings. Here it will suffice to say, that Assam as a whole is- under a Chief Commissioner who is directly responsible to the Governor-General in council. The Assam districts form what is called a non-regulation province i.e., one to which it has not been found expedient to extend our system of government in its strict legal entirety. Each district, instead of being under a judge and a magistrate- collector, with their separate sets of subordinates, is managed by a deputy-commissioner, in whom both the executive and judicial functions are combined. It is essentially an out lying province, yielding very little revenue to Government, and administered as cheaply as practicable. With the exception of Godlpara, the land revenue of Assam is at present under a light temporary settlement, the permanent settlement not having yet been extended to it on account of its sparse population and backward state. The popula tion is essentially agricultural, and no tendency appears on their part to gather into trading centres or to develop city life. Throughout the whole province there are only two towns with a population of upwards of 5000 souls, viz., Gauhati, population 11,492; and Sibsagar, 5278. The various Government rules for granting waste lands in fee- simple or on long leases at easy rates, have brought a con siderable number of English capitalists and speculators into the province. It is on these grants that many of the tea- gardens have been formed. The development of European enterprise has created a sudden and an urgent demand for roads, which the Government has hitherto not found itself in a position to meet. For all the ordinary purposes of the province, and for its heavy and bulky staples, such as timber, rice, food grains, and oil seeds, the Brahmaputra and its tributaries afford ample means of transit. The great trunk road, which the Muhammadans drove through Assam with a view to controlling the turbulent population, has long ago fallen into decay, and at many places is only recognisable as a line of fragmentary embankments. Each district, however, is now developing a system of roads, or at any rate of country tracks, of its own; and Sir George Campbell, the present Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal (1874), initiated a liberal policy towards the Assam com munications, with the view rather to the future of the province than to the amount of expenditure which its revenue at present warrants. Now that it is erected into a separate administration, a still more rapid progress may be looked for. With its vast forests, its inexhaustible rice- grounds, its coal, iron, and tea, and the cheap means of transit which its rivers afford, Assam, although at present one of the most backward among Indian provinces, has capabilities of development such as no other part of Bengal possesses.
ASSAROTTI, Ottavio Giovanni Battista, the founder of schools for the education of deaf-mutes in Italy, was born at Genoa in 1753. He received an excellent education; and after qualifying himself for the church, he entered the society of the Pietists, " Scuole Pie," who devoted them selves to the training of the young. His superior learning rendered his services very valuable, and he was appointed to lecture on theology to the students of the order. In 1801 he heard of the Abbe Sicard s experiments in the training of deaf-mutes, and resolved to try something similar in Italy. He began with one pupil, and had by degrees collected a small number round him, when, in 1 805, Napoleon, hearing of his endeavours, ordered a con vent to be given him for a school-house, and funds for supporting twelve scholars to be taken from the convent revenues. This order was scarcely attended to till 1811, when it was renewed, and in the following year Assarotti, with a considerable number of pupils, took possession of the new school. Here he continued, with the exception of a short interval in 1814, till his death in 1829. A pen sion, which had been awarded him by the king of Sardinia, he bequeathed to his scholars. Nothing definite is known as to the method of instruction pursued by Assarotti; he seems, in fact, to have followed no fixed plan.
ASSASSINS, a secret military and religious sect formed in Persia and Syria during the 11th century A.D. To understand clearly its nature and tenets, it is necessary to refer to the doctrines of the Ismaelitcs, of whom it was a branch, and who were themselves an offshoot from the great body of the Shiites. The Shiites, one of the two sects into which the Mahometans had separated, held in oppo sition to the Sunnites, or orthodox, that the true and only legitimate successor of the Prophet was his son-in-law, Ali. They did not succeed in establishing by force the claims of this family; and, under the dynasties of the Ommiadc and Abbaside caliphs, they were compelled to keep their opinions secret. The large body of Shiites was further divided into several distinct parties, differing principally with regard to the recognised line of -succession from Ali; of these the most powerful was that of the Ismaelites, so called because they held that the Imamat descended in an unbroken line from Ali to Ismael, his seventh successor. The adherents of this sect were most widely spread in Persia, and naturally the special object of their opposition was the Abbaside caliphate of Baghdad, but no active steps were taken by them, until under one of the Persian magi, Abdallah-ibn- Maimun Kadah, they had been organised into a secret society, with definite political objects and peculiar religious or philosophical views. Abdallah, like many of his coun trymen, was a free-thinker, and he succeeded in establishing among the Ismaelites a faith, or rather a philosophy, wholly opposed to the doctrines of Islam. The funda mental principles of his creed appear to have been (1.) The rejection of all fixed rules either of religion or morality ; all actions were therefore indifferent, only the internal dis position was of any value; (2.) The belief that the Imams of the line of Ismael were at present invisible, and that, consequently, it was the duty of true believers to yield implicit obedience to the vicegerents on earth of these secret rulers ; (3.) The allegorical interpretation of the Koran, whereby any doctrine might be either defended or rejected. He also established a regular system of grades or a hierarchy of ranks among the members of the society ; only a few members were fully initiated into the philosophy of indifference, the others were kept in a state of profound ignorance, for the rulers knew how necessary this was in order to secure their obedience.
practice was made by one Ahmed, surnamed Karmath, whence his followers were called Karmathites. After a sanguinary struggle with the caliphs, lasting during many years, this revolt was quelled. But about the same time an adherent of the sect, named Abdallah. a lineal descendant of Ismael, escaped from prison, into which he had been thrown, and, making his way to Egypt, succeeded in placing himself upon the throne of that country. Under the name of Obeid-Allah-Mahdi, he founded the dynasty of the Fatimites, who took their title from their ancestress, the daughter of Mahomet. Ismaelism thus secured a firm footing in the west, and its doctrines were propagated there with great success. At Cairo a grand lodge was formed in which their philosophical principles were perfected, and the process of initiation carried on in its several grades. While this lodge was at the height of its prosperity there
arrived in Egypt a learned dai or missionary of the Eastern