Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/36

 ward. Each year the schools were turning out boys and youths, able to read, and with their intelligenee awakened, but the only books in their own language were scarce and dear, and for the most part neither instructive nor edifying. He therefore, in co-operation with his friend Koour Lutchman Sing, determined to supply this want ; and towards the end of 1859 they started The People's Friend, a vernacular paper, carefully conducted, and published at so cheap a rate as to be accessible to the poorest of the village youths. It was intended originally for Etawah alone, but its fame went abroad, and it circulated throughout the North-West Provinces, and even penetrated to Gwalior and Bhurtpore. Not being an official publication it did not come under the suspicion of partiality, and rendered valuable service in explaining the policy of the Government, and in counter-acting influences prejudicial to good feeling. The Government of the North-West Provinces subscribed for six hundred copies, and The People's Friend came under the favourable notice of the Viceroy, at whose suggestion copies of the paper were forwarded, with translations, to the Secretary of State, for submission to Queen Victoria. It was felt that Her Gracious Majesty would be interested in seeing this early specimen of Indian journalism, and in realizing the gratitude and affection inspired by her personality among the humblest and most distant of her subjects.

(5) Juvenile Reformatories. And the bad boys had to be remembered as well as the good boys. It appears that the Etawah District was periodically invaded by bands of professional young thieves, coming from certain outside tracts. They were