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mofussil were not slow in following the lead of Calcutta. Indeed, the reports of the proceedings of the Barisal police flew like wildfire and deeply stirred popular feeling. Men indifferent to public move- ments took the Swadeshi vow and practised it in their daily lives. Recluses buried amid their books emerged from their seclusion and eagerly joined the Swadeshi and anti-Partition demonstrations. A monster meeting, second only to that of the 16th October, was held at the house of Rai Pashupatinath Bose. It was an open-air demonstration and the spacious courtyard was filled to suffocation. Rai Narendranath Sen, the most moderate among the political leaders of Bengal, was called to the chair. He described the Barisal incident as 'hardly having any parallel in the history of British India. The Press and the platform' he said, 'are the safety-valves of popular discontent,' and he added that 'whenever they have been sought to be suppressed, anarchy has intervened.' The words were prophetic, as subsequent events have shown.

The anarchical or the revolutionary movement—the terms are somewhat loosely used as synonymous—soon after made its first appearance in Bengal. It was the culminating expression of the widespread discontent caused by the Partition of Bengal and deepened by the policy associated with it, of which the unpro- voked assault on the delegates by the police and the dispersal of the Conference were the most notable illustrations. The Partition of Bengal was not only an administrative measure, but it was the symbol of a new policy unknown to the traditions of British rule. It was followed by repression. Swadeshi workers or preachers were often prosecuted or persecuted; public meetings in public places were prohibited; military police were stationed in quiet centres of population, and they committed assaults upon peaceful citizens. Many of the residents of Banaripara, in the district of Barisal, where Gurkha soldiers were stationed, seriously thought of migra- ting from the place. Respectable people were falsely charged with sedition for issuing Swadeshi circulars, and Babu Aswini Kumar Dutt, the recognized leader of the Barisal district, was one of them.

The climax was reached when the police assaulted the delegates and dispersed the Conference at Barisal. The anarchical movement followed immediately. The public feeling was one of wild excite- ment. The young in all countries are the most impressionable. In Bengal, recent events had shaken their faith in constitutional methods and had driven them to the verge of despair. An incident within my own experience enables me to fix the time of the genesis