Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/151

Rh ignorant masses of the population. To allay these unfounded apprehensions Nawab Abdul Latif, who was a member of the Exhibition Committee, took immediate steps. He wrote and published a paper in Hindustani and Bengali, which was approved by the authorities, pointing out that so far from endeavouring to spy out the resources of the land in order to impose fresh taxation, Government was only anxious to improve the condition of the people and to make known to them better and more modern methods. Widely circulated, Abdul Latif's sensible and convincing paper did much to inspire confidence in the people and to make the exhibition a success.

Two years later the first census of 1865-6 aroused the same unreasoning suspicion and excitement among the lower classes. No fewer than one hundred and ninety eight families left home rather than be enumerated, regarding the census as an intrusion into the privacy of their family life and as a raid upon their houses with the object of imposing fresh taxes upon them. Abdul Latif was a member of the Special Committee of Justices charged with carrying out the census, and again a paper of his, read before the Muhammadan Literary Society, which was translated into the vernacular and widely circulated at his own expense, helped largely towards inducing a saner and more practical view of government's object in enforcing it. About the same time a Bill was introduced into the