his
most iniquitous measure. I remember it was in contemplation to hold a
monster meeting on the maidan in the big tent of Wilson's Circus which
then happened to be in Calcutta, but in the meantime it was announced
that wiser counsels had prevailed, and Lord Ripon had reluctantly
climbed down, I believe, after most strenuous persuasion, and had
consented to a compromise by agreeing to the introduction of a clause
in the Bill conferring the right of option on European-born subjects
electing to be tried or not by a native magistrate. Thus ended the
most sensational and exciting controversy Calcutta has ever
experienced, and one which, unfortunately, struck a note of discord
between the European and Indian communities, the effects of which are
still apparent, and in a measure marred that feeling of kindliness and
mutual trust and good-will that formerly existed between the two
races.

A MUCH-CHANGED CITY.

As for the appearance of Calcutta half a century and more ago, it was
very different to what it is now, and there were, of course, none of
the amenities of life which make the city a pleasant place to live in
to-day, even in the hot weather and rains. There were no paved
side-walks, the water supply came from tanks and wells, there were no
electric lights or fans, and no telephone. The drainage system was of
the crudest with open drains in many side streets. There were no
"Mansions" or blocks of flats as there are now, and generally the city
was a very different place to the Calcutta of to-day. The floods in
the streets are pretty bad at the present time after a heavy monsoon
storm, but nothing like what they were then, I remember going to
office one morning after three days and nights of heavy rain, and at
the cornet of Park and Free School Streets, where Park Mansions stand
now, there was quite a lake from which as I was passing I was startled
to see a tall form rise from the water. It was one of the masters of
the Doveton College, who had taken his boys to bathe there, and the
water must have been fully three or four feet deep!

The residential quarter was then, as now, "South of Park Street," with
the difference that where Alipore Park now is was a big open field
with a factory, which was called the Arrowroot Farm Rainey Park, Bally
gunge, was a big building called Rainey Castle, standing in its own
extensive grounds, owned by a Mr. Griffiths, and occupied as a
chummery. On the other side was a large building w