64 Olservations on Provincial Exhibitions, [no. 3, new series. 
V. Observations on Provincial Exliibitio7is and the improve- 
ment of the Besources of the several Districts of the Mad- 
ras Presidency. By J. Forbes Royle, m. d. 
1. The correspondence referring to the establishment of Pro- 
vincial Agricultural Meetings for the distribution of Prizes in 
the several Collectorates of the Madras Presidency, is pregnant 
with important facts and inferences for the future improvement and 
development of the Resources of these Provinces. Considering 
the general state of information among the class of cultivators, not 
only in India, but in other parts of the world, it is not surprising, 
that the first enunciation of a proposal, in which money and jewels 
were to be given and nothing received in return, was received in 
some places with suspicion, and others with indifference, and in 
most with unwillingness to exhibit. All this is justly ascribed to 
the novelty of the proposed scheme and to the ignorance of the 
great mass of the people ; where it is said, " The person most 
*' respected among the Hindoo population, is the man who does as 
** his ancestors have done ; and who, on all occasions upholds the 
mamool or custom. The person looked upon with suspicion, is 
" the man who troubles the village with change and novelty." Coll. 
page 157. 
2. Though the success of Exhibitions in this country is ap- 
pealed to, and spoken of as a thing not to be expected in the East, 
I am far from participating in the sentiment. For I happen to be 
one of those who practically experienced the diflficulty of inducing 
those who were the most able, to be the most ready to contribute 
to the Great^^Exhibition of 1851. Having been entrusted by the 
Royal Commissioners with the Department of Raw Products, my 
principal business at first was to induce parties dealing in different 
classes of Raw Products to contribute collections of specimens of 
the Articles in which they dealt, in order that the Great Exhibition 
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