oudly of the apathy evinced at home to all
that concerns their advantage and prosperity, are quite content to
drowze over their old _dustoors_ (customs), and make no attempt to
direct the public attention in England to subjects of real importance.

Though unwilling to indulge in premature remarks, these are pressed
upon me by the general complaints which I hear upon all sides; but
though everybody seems to lament the evil, no one exerts himself to
effect a remedy, and while much is talked of individually, little is
done by common consent. One great bar to improvement consists, I am
told, of the voluminous nature of the reports upon all subjects, which
are heaped together until they become so hopelessly bulky, that nobody
can be prevailed upon to wade through them. In England, at all public
meetings, a great deal of time and breath are wasted in superfluous
harangues; but these can only effect the remote mischief threatened by
Mr. Babbage, and produce earthquakes and other convulsions in distant
lands, in distant centuries; whereas the foolscap is a present and a
weighty evil, and has probably swamped more systems of improvement,
and more promising institutions, than any other enemy, however active.

The intellectual community of India seems yet to have to learn the
advantage of placing all that relates to it in a clear, succinct, and
popular form, and of bringing works before the British public which
will entertain as well as instruct, and lead those who are employed
in legislating for our Eastern territories to inquire more deeply into
those subjects which so materially affect its political, moral, and
commercial prosperity.

FINIS.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Notes of an Overland Journey Through
France and Egypt to Bombay, by Miss Emma Roberts

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