CEYLON BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 89 



Of the very close connection existing between crime and 

 ignorance, there can be but little doubt, and it is to be hoped 

 that the gathering together of facts and figures, bearing upon 

 the subject, may not be abandoned. 



It would be interesting in the extreme, to peruse tables 

 shewing the number of schools and scholars, in each district, 

 in juxtaposition to returns of the extent and nature of 

 crime in the same places. 



Another branch of enquiry, which would serve as an index 

 to the progress of the Colony, is the increase in Internal 

 communication and Island traffic. There cannot be a surer, 

 a safer criterion, whereby to judge of the prosperity of a 

 people, than the improvements effected, and the facilities 

 afforded in keeping up the communications between one dis- 

 trict and another. Roads and Canals have not inaptly been 

 termed, the veins and arteries of a country, and in proportion 

 as they are attended to, will the general system be found to 

 flourish. They are at once the type, and the cause of 

 civilization. 



Returns from the Kandy and Galle Coach offices, of the 

 yearly transit of passengers, will give us an idea of the 

 extension of communication as regards Europeans, and the 

 upper classes of natives. Returns from our Post office, 

 which 1 know would be gladly afforded, might throw further 

 light on this branch of enquiry, by shewing the steady in- 

 crease of internal communication by letters, one of the surest 

 guides to the growing prosperity of a country. The number 

 of Cart licenses annually issued, would form some criterion 

 as to the increase of traffic, out of large towns, but not so 

 fully as might be desired, because many cart owners in busy 

 seasons will work their bandies more frequently with relays 

 of cattle, whilst bazaar keepers often convey their goods to 

 Kandy, in vehicles of their own, and of course without 

 licenses. The only correct mode would therefore appear to 



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