THE LATE SIR DENZIL IBBETSON.
1_TO THZ EDITOR OF TUB "SPECTATOR.']
Sza,—The untimely death of Sir Denzil Ibbetson has robbed India not only of a great administrator, but of a great anthropologist. The chapters on Hindu and Mussulman castes, and on the religion of the peasantry, contained in his Settlement Report of the Karnal District, and in the Report on the Punjab Census of 1881, have become documents of the highest importance to all students of religion and sociology in India. Since they were published many officers have under- taken similar inquiries; but most of them have drawn their inspiration from Ibbetson's Reports, and have discovered nothing to invalidate the conclusions at which he arrived. These Reports were published in limited editions, and are now unprocurable. I would suggest that the most fitting memorial which the Punjab Government could raise to their late head would be the republication of his ethnological writings. The Lieutenant-Governor at the last annual meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal complained that the young civilians of the present day do not interest themselves in the work of the Society, and do not learn the vernacular tongues because the native gentlemen with whom they work on District and Municipal Boards prefer that the work should be done in English. Further north-west the ideal of the District Officer has been different, and be has preferred to study the people at home rather than listen to the oratory of the Babu. This first-band, open-air familiarity with the life of the peasant is the leading characteristic of Ibbetson's writings; and it is welL that they should be placed in the hands of every young civilian, if only to. show him bow much even the busiest official can learn about the condition of the village population if he devotes to the-study, of them the same sympathy and insight which appear in the work of the late Lieutenant-Governor of
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