which crosses the Sutlej by the Empress Bridge opposite Bahawalpur. It is also entered by the branch from Lyallpur to Khanewal junction, crossing the Ravi.
The early Arab geographers mention Multan as forming part of the kingdom of Sind, which was conquered for the caliphate by Mahommed bin Kasim in the middle of the 8th century. On the dismemberment of the Mogul Empire in the middle of the 18th century, Multan fell to the Afghans, who held it with difficulty against the Sikhs. At length, in 1818, Ranjit Singh after a long siege carried the capital by storm; and in 1821 he made over the administration of Multan with five neighbouring districts to Sawan Mal, who raised the province to a state of prosperity by excavating canals and inducing new inhabitants to settle. After the establishment of the council of regency of Lahore, difficulties arose between Mulraj, son and successor of Sawan Mal, and the British officials, which led to his rebellion, and culminated in the second war and the annexation of the whole of the Punjab. The city of Multan, after a stubborn defence, was carried by storm in January 1849. The district at once passed under direct British rule, and order was not disturbed even during the Mutiny.
The Division of Multan is the south-western division of the Punjab. It was abolished in 1884, but reconstituted in 1901. Its area is 29,516 sq. m. and its population in 1901 was 3,014,675. It includes the six districts of Mianwali, Jhang, Lyallpur, Multan, Muzaffargarh, and Dera Ghazi Khan.
MULTIPLEPOINDING, in Scots law, the technical term for a form of action by which conflicting claims to the same fund or property are determined. The action is brought either by the holder or by a claimant in his name. All who have any claims in the fund or property in question are ordered to appear and give in their claims; the court then prefers them according to their respective rights, and the holder of the fund or property in dispute on payment or delivery is absolved from any further claim in regard to it. It corresponds to the process of inter-pleader in English law.
MULTITUBERCULATA, a group of extinct mammals, mostly of small size, whose remains are met with in strata ranging from the Trias to the Eocene, both in Europe and in North America. They are mostly known by their lower jaws, and take their name from the fact that the grinding teeth (fig. 2, m. 1 and 2; and fig. 3 a. b. c.) bear two or three longitudinal rows of tubercles, or are provided with tubercles round the edges. From this feature these otherwise unknown animals are believed to be related to the existing egg-laying mammals (duck-billed platypus and spiny ant-eater), constituting the order Monotremata, and are therefore provisionally placed near that group. The largest representative of the Multituberculata is Polymastodon from the Lower Eocene of New Mexico; the same beds also yield the smaller Ptilodus; while from corresponding strata at Rheims, in France, has been obtained the nearly allied Neoplagiaulax. The latter takes its name from its resemblance to Plagiaulax (figs. 1 and 2) from the Purbeck strata of Swanage, Dorsetshire, which was one of the first-known members of the group. These have cutting teeth in front and multituberculate molars behind. Allodon and Ctenacodon represent the group in the Cretaceous of North America; and the English Purbeck genus Bolodon, in which all the cheek-teeth are multituberculate, also belongs here. Stereognathus (fig. 3) is another English Upper Oolitic type. Single teeth from the Rhaetic of England and Württemberg described as Microlestes apparently indicate the earliest member of the group. A skull from the Upper Triassic Karoo beds of South Africa described as Tritylodon longaevous, which has multituberculate molar teeth, was also at first placed in this group, but has been subsequently regarded as a reptile, although Dr R. Broom considers that the original determination is correct. Possibly a fore-limb from the same formation described as Theriodesmus phylarchus indicates a similar or allied animal. Not improbably Tritylodon indicates a direct link between the multituberculate mammals and the anomodont reptiles of the Permian and Trias. (R. L.*)
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| Fig. 1.—Lower Jaw of Plagiaulax becclesi, from the Purbeck Strata of Swanage. |
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Fig. 2.—Lower jaw of Plagiaulax minor, from Swanage. p. 1-4 premolars; m. 1 and 2 molars. |
Fig. 3.—Fragment of Jaw of Stereognathus öolithicus in matrix. a b c, molars. |
MUMMERS, bands of men and women in medieval and later
England and elsewhere, who, during periods of public festivity,
particularly at Christmas, dressed in fantastic clothes and
wearing masks or disguised as animals, serenaded the people
outside their houses or joined in the revels within. In a more
restricted sense the term is applied to the actors in the old
English rural folk-plays of St George, &c.; and “mumming”
thus becomes a contemptuous synonym for any form of
stage-playing. The origin of the word mummer (older spelling
“mommer,” Fr. momeur) is not satisfactorily explained; but
the verb “to mum” means both to mutter and to be silent,
and “mummer” apparently comes from one or both of these
senses. Mumming seems to have been a survival of the Roman
custom of masquerading during the annual orgies of the Saturnalia.
“The disguisyng and mummyng that is used in Christemase
tyme,” Langley writes in his synopsis of Polydore Virgil,
“in the Northe partes came out of the feasts of Pallas, that were
done with visars and painted visages, named Quinqatria of the
Romaynes.” Aubanus, writing of mumming in Germany, says
that “in the Saturnalia there were frequent and luxurious feastings
amongst friends, presents were mutually sent, and changes of
dress made: that Christians have adopted the same customs,
which continue to be used from the Nativity to the Epiphany:
that exchanges of dress too, as of old among the Romans, are
common, and neighbours by mutual invitation visit each other
in the manner which the Germans call mummery.” Christmas
was the grand season for mumming in England. Some were
disguised as bears, others as unicorns, or wore deer’s hide and
antler’s or ram’s horns. Mumming led to such outrages that
Henry VIII. issued a proclamation declaring the wearing of
a mask or disguise a misdemeanour. Stow gives an
account of an elaborate mummery held in 1377 by the London
citizens to amuse the son of the Black Prince, then living at
Kennington (Survey, 1603, p. 97). In Scotland, where mumming
still exists at Christmas, Hogmanay, New Year’s Day and
Handsel Monday, mummers are called “guisards.” They usually
present on these four nights a rude drama called Galatian, which,
in various versions, is common throughout the Lowlands of
Scotland (see Chambers’s Popular Rhymes, p. 170).
MUMMIUS, LUCIUS (2nd century B.C.), surnamed Achaïcus, Roman statesman and general. Consul in 146 B.C. Mummius was appointed to take command of the Achaean War, and having obtained an easy victory over the incapable Diaeus, entered Corinth unopposed. All the men, women, and children were put to the sword, the statues, paintings and works of art were seized and shipped to Rome, and then the place was reduced to ashes. The apparently needless cruelty of Mummius in Corinth, by no means characteristic of him, is explained by Mommsen as due to the instructions of the senate, prompted by the mercantile party, which was eager to get rid of a dangerous commercial rival. According to Polybius, his inability to resist the pressure
