1 iv ORIGINAL PREFACE.
2 light reading ; and men take it up, not to read it tbrougli, Imt to obtain from
3 it information on some definite point. It is therefore more important that it
4 should lie complete than that it should he brief; and so long as its arrange-
5 ment directs the student at once to the place where he will find what he wants,
6 without compelling him to wade through irrelevant matter, the fuller the
7 information which he there finds on Ihc subject, the more valuable will (he
8 report be to him. I have therefore omitted nothing relevant that seemed to me
9 to be interesting or useful, simply because it occupied sjwce.
10 The difficulty of an Indian Census springs mainly from two sources; the
11 infinite diversity of the material to be dealt w ith, and our own infinite ignor-
12 ance of that material. The present Census was, as regai'ds the Panjab and in
13 respect of its minuteness and accuracy of detail, practically a first experiment ;
14 and one of its most valuable results has been to show us where our chief
15 difficulties lie, and how and why we have on this occasion frequently failed to
16 overcome them. If the present Census had been one for all time, nothing more
17 would have been needed than such a brief account of the operations as W'ould
18 have explained to the student of the results how those results had been
19 obtained. If, on the other hand, a Census were of annual recuiTcnce, an
20 " oflSce," with its permanent staff and traditions, would have taken the place of
21 the i-ecord of the experience which I have attempted to frame. But the
22 operations will be repeated after inteivals of ten years. It has therefore been
23 my endeavour to record the experience now gained in such detail as may enable
24 us to avoid past errors on a future occasion, to point out every defect tliat
25 the test of actual practice disclosed in the scheme, and to put forth everv
26 suggestion that my experience led me to think could be of use to my successor
27 in 1891.
28 Till now nothing of the sort has been attempted in the Panjab. The
29 meagre report on the Census of 186S affords no record of the experience of the
30 past or suggestions for guidance in the future; while though Settlement
31 reports and similar publications contain a vast mass of invaluable information
32 regarding the people, it is scattered and fragmentary, and needed to be
33 collected, compared, and consolidated. A Census reciu-s only after considerable
34 intervals, and it will not be necessary on each subsequent occasion to rewrite
35 the whole of the present report. Much will be added ; more will be coiTected ;
36 the new figures will be examined and compared with the present ones ; the old
37 conclusions will be modified, and new ones drawn. But the main groundwork
38 of the report will stand unaltered.
39 I have not absolutely confined myself in the following pages to facts and
40 figures which wall be immediately useful for the actual purposes of administra-
41 tion. I have not hesitated to enter occasionally into general discussions