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good a lawyer as he was a true and an earnest friend; and through him the negotiations were brought to a successful termination and 1 became the proprietor and editor of the Bengalee from January 1, 1879. I paid Rs. 10 to Babu Bacharam Chatterjee, as consider- ation money for the goodwill of the paper. I owe it to his memory to say that he would not ask for more nor accept more. Indeed, he wanted to make a free gift of the paper, but, as Babu Romanath Law pointed out that some money had to be paid in order to give legal validity to the transaction, he accepted the small pecuniary consideration to which I have referred. I paid Rs. 1,600 for the press, borrowing from a friend Rs. 700 for the purpose, which I repaid after a couple of years without interest, as my friend would charge none. I mention these facts, trivial as they may seem, in order to record my appreciation of the good wishes and the unspoken blessings of many, amid which the Bengalee newspaper came under my charge.

Not the shadow of a desire to start a business transaction was present in my mind. All that I had in view, the sole inspiring impulse, was to serve the public ends with which I had completely identified myself. Indeed, having become the proprietor of the paper, I offered it to the Indian Association, undertaking to edit the paper for nothing, the Association paying all other expenses. As the Hindoo Patriot was the property of the British Indian Asso- ciation, the Indian Association might, I thought, place itself in the same relation in regard to the Bengalee. But the difficulty was that the paper was a losing concern, and the Association, young as it was and limited as to its funds, felt that it would be inexpedient to incur the pecuniary liability of managing the Bengalee. Judging in the light of subsequent events, I must say that the decision of the Association was a wise one. No political organization with its own special work and its multifarious duties could have controlled with anything like efficiency a newspaper with the wide and increasing circulation of the Bengalee. But I am anticipating events.

When I became editor and proprietor of the Bengalee in January, 1879, it was a weekly newspaper. With the exception of the Indian Mirror, all our newspapers in Bengal, including the most influential, were weekly. The craving for fresh news was then not general; and Indian readers for the most part were content to have a weekly supply of news and comments thereon. I remember speaking at the time to the head master of a Government high school, a man of education and culture, who said to me that it took him a week's