Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/254

 it placed him absolutely at the mercy of the District Judge as the rules then stood, in passing his Matriculation, and F.A. in 1865 and 1866 by private study and his B.L. in 1868, also by private study, standing 1st in 2nd class. He followed up his success by an year of apprenticeship under an English Barrister Mr. Mills, Official Reporter, and settled down in Madura in the practice of his profession—with his professional independence secure from the high-handed interference of erratic Judges and Magistrates. Amongst the many suits at the earliest period of his legal practice two deserve prominent mention, one in which he was retained on behalf of the Ramnad Zemindary—continuing the work of his father in another sphere to that ancient Samasthanam, in the conduct of which the late Mr. J. D. Mayne as his senior found Subramaniya Aiyar quite capable of being left in sole charge of it upto the time of its trial in Madura. And the other was a temple suit in which the Dharmadhikaries of the Sri Meenakshi temple were sued to make good a large deficit of Rs. 40,000 and one of them was by the judgment of the Court ordered to refund the sum. Subramaniem was a Municipal Commissioner dnd a