modern literature and drama of Western India as
well as in politics. Of the higher appointments held by natives in the
Presidency of Bombay, the last census tells us that the Hindus held 266
against 86 held by Parsees and 23 held by Mahomedans, and that out of
those held by the Hindus, more than 72 per cent. were held by Brahmans,
though the Brahmans form less than one-fourteenth of the total Hindu
population of the province. All Brahmans are not, of course, Chitpavans,
but the Chitpavans supply an overwhelming majority of those Government
officials, and their ascendency over every other Brahman sept in
Maharashtra is undisputed. From the Deccan, moreover, their influence
has spread practically all over India and, especially, in the native
States, which have recruited amongst the Chitpavans some of their ablest
public servants. Amongst Chitpavans are to be found many of the most
enlightened and progressive Indians of our times and many have served
the British _Raj_ with unquestioned loyalty and integrity. But amongst
many others--perhaps indeed amongst the great majority--there has
undoubtedly been preserved for the last hundred years from the time of
the downfall of the Peshwa dominion to the present day, an unbroken
tradition of hatred towards British rule, an undying hope that it might
some day be subverted and their own ascendency restored. Not to go back
to the exploits of Nana Sahib, himself a Chitpavan, and his followers
during the Mutiny, or to the Ramoshi rebellion round Poona in 1879, it
was in Poona that the native Press, mainly conducted by Brahmans, first
assumed that tone of virulent hostility towards British rule and British
rulers which led to the Press Act of 1879, and some of the worst
extracts quoted at that time by the Government of India in support of
that measure were taken from Poona newspapers. It was in Poona that some
years later the assassination of two English officials by a young
Chitpavan Brahman was the first outcome of a fresh campaign, leading
directly to political murder. It was by another Chitpavan Brahman that
Mr. Jackson was murdered last December at Nasik; his accomplices were
with one exception Chitpavan Brahmans, and to the same sept of Brahmans
belong nearly all the defendants in the great conspiracy trial now
proceeding at Bombay.

But if there were already, more than 20 years ago, wild and
irreconcilable spirits bent on fomenting disaffection, there were
amongst the Deccanee Br