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16

1900-1901

I cannot pass away from the year 1900 without referring to the further expansion of the scope of my journalistic work. I took up the Bengalee, as Editor and Proprietor, in 1879. It continued to be a weekly newspaper from 1879 to February, 1900, when it was converted into a daily. The proposal to make it a daily paper had been suggested to me more than once, but I thought it would interfere with my other public activities. I soon discovered, however, that a weekly English paper in Bengal advocating Indian interests was fast becoming an obsolete institution. Public life was growing, and the demand for early news was increasing. The weekly newspaper was rapidly falling into disfavour, losing influence and popularity. I had to yield to the great law of adaptation and the pressure of circumstances.

The proposal was pressed upon me by the late Raja Benoy Krishna Deb, who always took a friendly and even an affectionate interest in all my undertakings, public or private. Babu Upendranath Sen, of Messrs. C. K. Sen & Co. and part proprietor of the Hitabadi newspaper, and myself entered into a partnership agreement for ten years, and the Bengalee became, and now is, a daily paper. Ours was the first Indian newspaper to subscribe to Reuter's Agency, and we never regretted having done so.

What measure of success the Bengalee achieved while it was under my control, it is not for me to say. But whatever position it attained was largely due to the rare devotion and businesslike capacity of Taraprosanna Mitter, its late Manager. Taraprosanna Mitter was the life and soul of the paper. He trained himself to the work that he was called upon to perform, and by a combination of tact, devotion and organizing power he built up the paper. He worked hard, worked incessantly—he literally sacrificed himself in the service of the Bengalee; and, now that he is gone, his memory is a cherished possession with those who had the privilege of working with him and under him.