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stand in the verandah. Visitors were allowed free access to me, and they were counted by scores every day, and my letters and telegrams were duly delivered to me. They were so numerous that, Mr. Larymore told me, he had to employ a special messenger for the purpose. My wife once came to see me, escorted by the venerable Robert Knight, editor of the Statesman. The Statesman wrote a series of articles condemning the sentence of imprisonment passed on me. The Statesman valiantly championed the cause of right and justice, and the Indian public showed their appreciation of Mr. Robert Knight's services by holding a public meeting and raising a fund to help him when involved in a defamation case brought against him by the Burdwan Raj. I was a speaker at that meeting.

The news of my imprisonment created a profound impression not only in Calcutta, and in my own province, but throughout India. In Calcutta, on the day of my imprisonment, the Indian shops were closed and business was suspended in the Indian part of the town, not by order, or by an organized effort, but under a spontaneous impulse which moved the whole community. The students went into mourning. The demonstrations held in Calcutta were so large that no hall could find space for the crowds that sought admittance: the bazaars were utilized for the purpose. Then was first started the practice of holding open-air meetings, and these were demons- trations not confined to the upper ten thousand or the educated classes: the masses joined them in their thousands. Hindu feeling had been touched. A Hindu god had been brought to a court of law; and, whatever the legal merits of the case might have been (and with these the general public do not usually trouble them- selves), the orthodox Hindu felt, rightly or wrongly, that there had been an act of desecration. The educated community, though sympathizing with their orthodox countrymen, were impelled by motives of a different order. The Ilbert Bill controversy, in which Mr. Justice Norris had unfortunately taken a prominent part, unbecoming his judicial position, had roused them to a fever-heat of excitement. They further felt that a sentence of a fine, as in the Taylor Case, cited by Mr. Justice Mitter, would have been sufficient, and they scented in the punishment of imprisonment inflicted on me a flavour of party feeling unworthy of the traditions of the highest Judicial Bench.

In the whole course of my public life, I have never witnessed, except in connexion with the agitation for the modification of the