Poonah

Poonah, or PUNA, a town of British India, 119 miles by rail SE. of Bombay, is the military capital of the Deccan and the seat of the government of the presidency during the last half of the year. The city is embosomed in gardens, but its streets are mostly narrow or crooked, and the houses poor. The ruins of the peshwa's palace, burned in 1827, still remain. Under the peshwas the city was the capital of the Mahratta princes and power; it was occupied and annexed by the British in 1818. Here have been built the Deccan College and the College of Science, the latter for training civil engineers, a normal school and normal college, a high school, and other educational establishments. The Europeans live chiefly at the cantonments, north-west of the city. The natives manufacture cottons and silks, gold and silver jewellery; ivory and grass ornaments, and clay figures. Pop. (1851) 73,209; (1872) 90,436; (1881) 99,622, to which must be added 30,129 in the cantonment; (1891) 160,460. The visitations of the sanitary authorities to native houses during the plague here in 1897 led to riots and murderous assaults.