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time to go through the Bengalee (then a weekly paper), and that if it were a daily paper he would not know what to do with it. That represented the temper of the Bengalee mind, say, thirty years ago. The daily paper is a more recent development, but it has so com- pletely superseded the weekly that the latter has no chance of a wide circulation except as an adjunct to a daily paper.
In the early stages of my journalistic venture I was greatly assisted by the disinterested labours of my lamented friend, the late Ashutosh Biswas. I discovered him at a public meeting held at the London Missionary Society's Institution at Bhowanipore, where I delivered an address on Chaitanya. He spoke at that meeting. I was greatly impressed with what he said. The words were few; but they were eloquent, to the point, and came straight from the heart. They disclosed the man and the stuff that was in him. I invited him to see me; and our first acquaintance was the beginning of a friendship that only his tragic end dissolved. He called me his guru; it was no lip-deep profession. He was indeed a veritable 'disciple, following me with a fidelity and devotion rare in these days.
The paper used to be issued every Saturday morning, and we had to work during a good part of Friday night, correcting proofs, writing out copy if necessary, and giving directions to the printers. My friend was my companion, my colleague in this somewhat dreary work, from 1879 to the early part of 1884, when he began to help the Guardian, a weekly paper, which had just been started at Bhowanipore. Now that he is dead and gone, the victim of a tragic crime, I gratefully testify to the debt I owe to his memory.
With his rising practice at the Bar, my friend's interest in journalism became less keen and persistent than before, and latterly he ceased to have any connexion with it. But our personal relations continued to the last to be friendly and cordial, and, whenever I had need of legal help, I turned to him for advice and it was always cheerfully given. In politics he belonged to our party, and, while yet connected with the Bengalee, he went on a tour in Northern India to help the work of the Indian Association. It was the irony of fate that he should have been the victim of an anarchical outrage. The head and front of his offence was that, being engaged on the side of Government, he was helping the prosecution of the accused in what is known as the Alipore Bomb Case. He was one of the cleverest criminal lawyers of his day, and the accused had good reason to dread his legal skill and acumen. It is possibly this feeling that inspired the tragedy which