"One suggestion that these fragments of indigenous Indian Local Government seem to afford is that we sometimes tend to exaggerate the extent to which the cleavages of caste have prevailed over the community of neighbourhood. How often is one informed, 'with authority,' that the _panchayat_ of which we catch glimpses must be only a caste _panchayat_! It is plain, on the evidence, that however frequent and potent may be the _panchayat_ of a caste, there have been and still are _panchayats_ of men of different castes, exercising the functions of a Village Council over villagers of different castes. How widely prevalent these may be not even the Government of India can yet inform us. But if people would only look for traces of Village Government, instead of mainly for evidences of caste dominance, we might learn more on the subject." Later on in the same paragraph Mr. Webb remarks that, even where caste exists it has, in fact, permitted a great deal of common life, and that it is compatible with active village councils. Besides the evidence furnished by the texts of Hindu codes, law books and political treatises (like the _Arthasastra_ of _Kautalaya_), and Nítí Shástrá, etc., other good evidence has been produced by Mr. Matthai in support of the above-mentioned proposition. In Paragraph 23 he refers to the _Madras Epigraphic Report_, 1912-13, in support of the statement that "there were village assemblies in South India in the tenth century A.D., which 'appear to have consisted of all the residents of a village including cultivators, professionals and merchants.'" "In the _Private Diary of Anandaranga Pillay_, who served as agent to Dupleix, the French Governor in South India in the middle of the eighteenth century, there is an entry referring to a village meeting to consider a case of desecrating the village temple 'in which people of all castes--from the Brahman to the Pariah--took part.'" In Paragraph 24, he points out that a village council (_Panchayat_) might either be an assembly of all the inhabitants of the village or only a select committee consisting of representatives selected on some recognized principle. The first are common among less developed communities like those of the aboriginal tribes and the latter in more highly organized communities.