APPENDIX A.

BABOO HARRISCHANDER MOOKERJI was a gentleman of Calcutta; and the task of collecting the materials of his biography is no easy work for a young man at Bombay. To an English reader, this may sound hyperbolical; but while the facilities afforded in England to travel from one end of the country to another are manifold, in India the railway line is not completed even between Bombay and Surat, a distance of one day by the steam-passage, much less does it afford scope to travel from Bombay to Calcutta, a distance of a fortnight by sea. It was not a little despairing on this account, then, to collect together facts, even such meagre ones as have here been elaborated, for want of more individual information. Add to this, the want of a public library in Bombay, within reach of ordinary means, in which may be found all, or even the more important papers of the different parts of India, and the task would seem repelling to any individual; and the writer would have abandoned it in despair, but for a promise given to the public, of a lecture, before perceiving the difficulties of his sub

ject or writing a word on it. He had no contact with Baboo Harrischander Mookerji, nor was there to be found a single gentleman in Bombay sufficiently well acquainted with the life and incidents of the Bengalee Patriot to assist him in his work. Neither did he find it convenient to get access to any of the Calcutta papers, save an occasional sight of the Hindoo Patriot. Yet, with all these difficulties, the writer hopes to have succeeded well in collecting the materials, as fully as he could, of the life he has attempted to depict. That there are grounds for this hope, let the following letter from a talented Baboo at Calcutta, to whom the MS. was sent before passing through the press-one who, in addition to his being the fellow-citizen of Baboo Harrischander, was his friend and compeer in life, and after death has proved himself in more than one respect his worthy successor in the cause of India-fully testify :

LARKIN'S LANE, 25th October 1862.

**

DEAR SIR,-Your MS. has at last duly come to hand. * In reading the chapters, copies of which you have been so good as to send, I have been really struck to find that a Native of Bombay has been able to collect so much information regarding the life and career of a Bengalee Patriot. I doubt whether some of his intimate friends know so much as has been given by you. One or two points, however, require corrections, which I take the liberty to submit, in the hope that you will receive them with the same kindness of spirit that breathes throughout your writings.

As far as I have been informed, Hurrish was not born an "absolute beggar." Son of a Koolin Brahmin, he did not of course

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66

inherit any patrimony; but his maternal uncle, who was a wellto-do man, used to take care of him. He did not starve," nor "live in misery," as your statements are likely to lead one to suppose. Always self-reliant and independent-minded, Hurrish did not much relish the life of dependence which he led, and hence his early desire to seek employment. As regards his induction into the Military Audit Office, your information is quite correct; but I think some acknowledgments are due to the late Colonel Goldie, who first discovered Hurrish's latent powers, and never failed to encourage him with friendly advice, reward, and hope. With regard to his literary career, you have omitted all allusion to his early efforts in the columns of the Hindoo Intelligencer, started by Baboo Kasipersad Ghose, the well-known Indian Bard, a contemporary of D.L.R., H. M. Parker, Henry Torrens, &c. Hurrischander also practised public writing in the columns of the Englishman, which was then edited by Mr. Cobb Hurry, who in those days was a great friend of the Natives.

Regarding his labours in the Indigo cause, one fact need be recorded, viz. that not only did he defend the Ryots in the columns of the Patriot, and expose their wrongs and grievances, but spared no pains to write memorials for them to Government, organise means for procuring legal assistance to them for conduct of cases, and for general advice on the spot; and even went to the length of helping them with money from his own scanty pocket.

In other respects, your picture of Hurrischander is faithful; only I wish you had spelt the great Patriot's name “Hurrish,” as we spell it here, and not " Harris," which reads like an English name. In fact, Hurrish himself never spelt his name otherwise than what I have written above.

*

*

Trusting this will find you in good health,

I am, yours truly,

KRISTODOP SAUL.

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APPENDIX B.

WHILE this work was being prepared for the press, the Deed of Settlement. of the Parsee Girls' School Association has been given to the public. We are not indebted to the courtesy of the Secretary for a copy of the little brochure; though the statement may be made, without warranting a charge of vanity, that our name is sufficiently public in the Native community to entitle us to a copy of whatever is distributed among the public at large. It is long since that we have set our face against the system which obtains favour with the Association, and publicly condemned more than once their reports, and their weakness and favouritism; and it is perhaps to this that we have to ascribe the neglect of the venerable Secretary. Or perhaps the Deed of Settlement was published exclusively for the members of the Association, with which we can never have anything to do. But be the case as it may, if we have been denied a copy by the old Secretary, we have succeeded in obtaining one from a friend; and we extremely regret to read that the Association has entertained views directly opposed to what we have

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APPENDIX B.

been propounding for female amelioration in India. they have bound down posterity to a barbarous notion of theirs, and have not only rendered the prospect of English education as remote as ever, but have actually closed it upon the Parsee community. There is a clause in the Deed which is as noteworthy for its pretension as contemptible for its barbarity :

"Fourth.--That the said Association shall establish and conduct schools in the Town and Island of Bombay, and (if funds permit) at other places in the Bombay Presidency, for imparting education to Parsee girls, professing the religion of Zoroaster; and such education shall consist of instruction in arithmetic, reading and writing, useful knowledge, industrial occupations and pursuits, handiwork and arts adapted to Parsee females, domestic economy, the principles of morality and the religion of Zoroaster, and grammar, geography, history and science shall also be taught; and such instruction shall be communicated through the medium of the vernacular language exclusively, except instruction in religious knowledge, which may, if deemed advisable by the Committee of Management for the time being, be also communicated in the languages in which the works relating to the religion of Zoroaster are composed."

We do not know who drafted this clause; but a more contemptible piece of hypocritical deception was never practised upon the public. Education at the girls' school consists, in the words of the fourth clause of the Deed of Settlement, of " instruction in arithmetic, reading and writing, useful knowledge, industrial occupations and pursuits, handiwork and arts adapted to Parsee females, domestic economy, the principles of morality and the religion of Zo