"India has always been considered a most wealthy and opulent country, more favoured by nature than any other in the world, a land literally flowing with milk and honey, where the soil yields all that is necessary for the existence of its happy people almost without cultivation. The great wealth accumulated by a few of its native princes, the large fortunes so rapidly acquired by many Europeans, its valuable diamond mines, the quality and quantity of its pearls, the abundance of its spices and scented woods, the fertility of its soil, and the, at one time, unrivalled superiority of its various manufactures: all these have caused admiration and wonder from time immemorial. One would naturally suppose that a nation which could supply so many luxuries would surpass all others in wealth. This estimation of the wealth of India has been commonly accepted in Europe up to the present day; and those who, after visiting the country and obtaining exact and authentic information about the real condition of its inhabitants, have dared to affirm that India is the poorest and most wretched of all the civilised countries of the world, have simply not been believed.…all these beautiful fabrics are manufactured in wretched thatched huts built of mud, twenty to thirty feet long by seven or eight feet broad. In such a work-room the weaver stretches his frame, squats on the ground, and quietly plies his shuttle, surrounded by his family, his cow, and his fowls. The instruments he makes use of are extremely primitive, and his whole stock in trade could easily be carried about by one man. Such is, in very truth, an exact picture of an Indian factory. As to the manufacturer himself, his poverty corresponds to the simplicity of his work-shop… I should class the inhabitants of the Indian Peninsula in the following manner. The first and lowest class may be said to be composed of all those whose property is below the value of 5 pounds sterling. This class appears to me to comprise nine-twentieths, or perhaps even a half, of the entire population… I place in the second class all those whose property ranges from 5 to 25 pounds sterling. This class, I should say, includes about six-twentieths of the entire population…Thirdly, I may reckon together those Hindus whose property varies in value from 25 to 50 pounds sterling. They comprise about one-tenth of the population…The fourth class comprises those whose property varies in value from 50 to 100 pounds sterling, and I should say it forms three-fortieths of the population…In the fifth class I should include all those whose property varies in value from 100 to 200 pounds sterling. It comprises about one-thirtieth of the whole population…The sixth class may be said to comprise individuals whose tangible property varies in value from 200 to 500 pounds sterling, and it represents, I should say, about one-fiftieth of the population…The seventh class may be said to be composed of those whose property varies in value from 500 to 1,000 pounds sterling. I should say only one-hundredth part of the population belongs to this class…The eighth class includes those whose properties range in value from 1,000 to 2,000 ponds sterling, and it comprises one two-hundredths of the population…"