Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/150

 bail was again applied for after the case was committed to the High Court Sessions Justice Tyabji granted bail founding his action upon an admirable recital of the Custom of the Criminal Courts in England. A Jury consisting of six Europeans and three Indians was empanelled and Mr. Tilak stood his trial before it. The sensation that Mr. Tilak's trial created at the time cannot be adequately described in words. The writer was then no older than fourteen and studying though he was in the third form in a far off mofussil station, he could not escape the vague knowledge and the vaguer excitement of the hour. Mr. Tilak's 1897 trial was but the second under the Press Law in India, the first being that of the Bangabasi long anterior. During the trial of Mr. Tilak's case a great deal of the discussion turned round the meaning of individual Vernacular words and his conviction was obtained by an appeal to the seditious nature of such words. To-day after the judgment of the learned judges who tried the latest of Mr. Tilak's cases a much needed legal dictum has been arrived at, that it is the effect of the whole speech or writing that must be taken into consideration not the meaning of