Volume 1

Materials towards a statistical account of the town and island of Bombay in three volumes.

  • Bombay (Presidency)
Date:
1893-1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Materials towards a statistical account of the town and island of Bombay in three volumes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    absence of any administrative necessity for the information, the want of the needful official machinery for collecting details and compiling statistics, and, at the same time, the excellence of Macleaffis Guide to Bombay were considered reasons enough for excluding the l^own and Island of Bombay from the Gazetteer series of District Statistical Accounts. Nearly three years ago the Secretary of State expressed the wish that a Statistical Account of the Town and Island of Bombay should be prepared. A scheme was drawn up, and, in anticipation of sanction, a small establishment was engaged, and the necessary preliminary examination of the Secretariat Becords was begun. The preparation of any suitable account of the Town and Island of Bombay implies the engagement of a large and highly paid special staff. Objections which could not be overcome were raised to the scale and the cost of the proposed scheme. The undertaking had to be abandoned. Meanwhile the small staff at work on the Secretariat Becords had extracted and arranged a mass of materials. The issue of these notes in printed form is due to the consideration of the Government of Bombay, who were unwilling to see wasted the Work and pay spent on this preliminary to any suitable official account of Bombay. These present materials are of necessity rough and disconnected. From the large number of missing important papers, they are also fragmentary. Further to some extent they repeat papers already published in Mr. Forrest^s carefully chosen Selections. Still the minute and intelligent care with which, as formerly in preparing the Gazetteer Land Administration Chapters, Mr. Krishnarao Narsinh has examined the Becords, has I believe secured the merit of accuracy and of such completeness as the state of the Secretariat Becords allows. The Chapters on Trade, Capital, and Justice have been revised and prepared for the press by Mr. A. M. T. Jackson, I.C.S., and on all points connected with Portuguese names and history ready help has been received from Dr. Gerson Da Cunha* For the benefit of a future Compiler the scheme for the Statistical Account of Bombay for which funds have not been found available, as well as a list of important papers not available in Bombay but believed to be available at the India Office in London, are printed as an Appendix. Bombay Customs House^) 1st September 1893. S J. M. CAMPBELL, Collector of Bombayc