He was backed and flanked by the principal European and native officers of State, while on his right sat Sir Harry Prendergast, V.C., the Resident at the Court of Mysore.

The English representatives, five in all, one of them representing the gold mining interests of the province, had seats on the platform, and so had as many representatives as there was room for.

The remainder occupied the body of the hall.

The Dewan then opened the tenth annual meeting of the Representative Assembly of Mysore, by reading the already printed annual administration Report of the Province, and it may not be uninteresting to quote the opening sentences of it: "Gentlemen, "By command of His Highness the Maharajah, I have much pleasure in welcoming you to this Assembly, which meets here to-day for the first time under the election system sanctioned last year.
You come here as the duly elected representatives of the agricultural, the industrial, and the commercial interests of the State.

Last year, when His Highness was pleased to grant the valued privilege of election, he was not without some misgivings as to how the experiment would succeed, but it is most gratifying to His Highness that, though unused to the system, the electoral body has been able, in the very first year of its existence, to exercise the privilege with so much judgment and sense of responsibility as to send to this Assembly men in every way qualified to speak on their behalf.