64 Observations on Provincial Exhibitions, [no. 3, new series. 



V. Observations on Provincial Exhibitions and the improve- 

 ment of the Resources 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 

 li 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 difficulty of inducing 

 those who w T ere 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 



