to the Brahmanical caste, though
only about 1,000 are Chitpavan Brahmans, the rest being mainly Deshastha
Brahmans, another great sept of the Deccanee sacerdotal caste. It is a
city of peculiar sanctity with the Hindus. The sacred Godavery--so
sacred that it is called there the _Ganga_--i.e. the Ganges--flows
through it, and its bathing _ghats_ which line the river banks and its
ancient temples and innumerable shrines attract a constant flow of
pilgrims from all parts of India. Indeed, many of the great Hindu
houses of India maintain there a family priest to look after their
spiritual interests. Nasik was, moreover, a city beloved of the Peshwas,
and, next to Poona preserves, perhaps, more intimate associations with
the great days of the Mahratta Empire than any other city of the Deccan.
But though no doubt these facts might account for a certain latent
bitterness against the alien rulers who dashed the cup of victory away
from the lips of the Mahrattas, just as the latter were establishing
their ascendency on the crumbling ruins of the Moghul Empire, they do
not suffice to account for the attitude of the people generally in
presence of such a crime as the assassination of Mr. Jackson. For if
murder is a heinous crime by whomsoever it may be committed, it ranks
amongst Hindus as specially heinous when committed by a Brahman. How is
it that in this instance, instead of outcasting the murderer, many
Brahmans continued more or less secretly to glorify his crime as "the
striking down of the flag from the fort"? How is it that, when there was
ample evidence to show that murder had been in the air of Nasik for
several months before the perpetration of the deed, not a single
warning, not a single hint, ever reached Mr. Jackson, except from the
police, whose advice, unfortunately, his blindly trustful nature led him
to ignore to the very end? How is it that, even after its perpetration,
though there was much genuine sympathy with the victim and many eloquent
speeches were delivered to express righteous abhorrence of the crime, no
practical help was afforded to the authorities in pursuing the
ramifications of the conspiracy which had "brought disgrace on the holy
city of Nasik"?

All this opens up wide fields for speculation, but there is one point
which a statement solemnly made by the murderer of Mr. Jackson has
placed beyond the uncertainties of speculation. In reply to the
magistrate who asked him why he committed the murder