the present century. But the popular ignorance respecting India under the Company was so dense that any romance could be safely hazarded. For although a denial might be given to it, the public only shrugged its shoulders, and felt that there was another Indian lie afloat, without being able to determine on which side was the truth. An Indian debate in Parliament often resolved itself into a series of contradictory statements. Even in respect to what we now consider as elementary questions of statistics, widely varying opinions were publicly maintained. It must be remembered that the first general census of India was not taken until 1871, almost a quarter of a century after the Company's downfall. That enumeration disclosed the previous official estimates to be erroneous as regards the Lieutenant-Governorship of Bengal alone by 25,000,000 of souls.
No authoritative work existed, to which either the public or the administrative body could refer, for the essential data concerning the princes or people of India. Districts now within half a day's railway journey of the capital were spoken of in the Calcutta Review, with more truth than we can now believe possible, as 'unexplored.' The Revue des Deux Mondes, in the height of its fame and notwithstanding its efforts at accuracy, could publish misstatements regarding India which would now simply raise a laugh, but for whose contradiction
