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the sake of revenue, what is known as the Outstill System was introduced into the Hughli district. It cheapened the sale of country liquor and reduced its price by nearly one half. This reduction naturally stimulated consumption. Drunkenness spread among the lower classes of the rural population with alarming rapidity. I live on the opposite side of the Hughli district, and within a stone's-throw of my house on the river bank is a liquor shop. I heard tales of drunkenness, of demoralization and ruin that were confirmed by reports which I received from the interior of the district. But I was not content with these reports. I visited a liquor shop at Haripal, and the sight I witnessed there was one that I shall never forget. I saw half a dozen men and women lying dead drunk on the floor of the shop. Another band of about a dozen men and women, all belonging to the lower classes, in varying stages of drunkenness, began dancing around me in wild delirious excitement. I apprehended violence and I slowly and cautiously retraced my steps from the shop, resolved that, so far as in me lay, this thing must cease.

I returned home with a load of sadness on my mind. I felt that a sustained and organized effort had to be made to save the people from the terrible effects of cheap liquor. The work was of a twofold character. We were to appeal to the people to avoid drink and to the Government to abolish the Outstill System. We gave precedence to the popular appeal and put it in the forefront of our programme. For we felt that, when opinion had been organized, our appeal would be irresistible. We worked upon this line; and the result proved the soundness of our programme. It was a guide to future work conceived and carried out on the same lines.

We began the campaign by organizing a series of mass meetings in the Hughli district. They were meetings of the poorer classes, attended by thousands and held in the open air, sometimes amid drenching rain. The language employed in addressing the meetings was the common language of the people, simple, unornate, free from the literary flavour of a more laboured diction. I had never before been accustomed to address public meetings in Bengalee, but with a little preparation I felt myself quite at home in my efforts in this untrodden path. They were to me a valuable training, which proved highly useful when later on I had to address numerous public meetings in connexion with what is known as the 'Swadeshi agitation'. These meetings were accompanied by Sankirton parties, which paraded the villages singing songs suited to the