Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/94

 a catastrophe. "The jungle is all dry," they said; " fire does spread wonderfully in such when the right wind blows, and it is blowing now, and hard." "This," writes Mr. Hume, "is how the case was put to me, and,, knowing the country and the people as I do — having been through something of the same kind, though on a small scale, in the Mutiny — and having convinced myself that the evidence of the then existing state of the prole- tariat was real and trustworthy, I could not then and do not now entertain a shadow of a doubt that we were then truly in extreme danger of a most terrible revolution."

What the nature of this evidence was, cannot be better told than in his own words : " The evidence that con- vinced me, at the time (about fifteen months, I think before Lord Lytton left) that we were in imminent danger of a terrible outbreak was this. I was shown seven large volumes (corresponding to a certain mode of dividing the country, excluding Burmah, Assam, and some minor tracts) containing a vast number of entries; English abstracts or translations — longer or shorter — of vernacular reports or communications of one kind or another, all arranged according to districts (not identical with ours), sub-districts, sub-divisions, and the cities, towns, and villages included in these. The number of these entries was enormous ; there were said, at the time, to be communications from over thirty thousand different reporters. I did not count them, they seemed countless; but in regard to the towns and villages of one district of the North-West Provinces with which I possess a peculiarly intimate acquaintance — a troublesome part of the country no doubt — there were nearly three hundred entries, a good number of which I could partially verify, as to the names of the people, etc." No doubt the district here referred to was Etawah, where he had been chief executive officer for many years. He mentions that he