Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/558

Rh These debts were incurred by him mostly on account of persons connected with widow marriage in the interior of the country. Vidyasagar himself admitted this in his letter to the Hindoo Patriot. Not only was he heavily embarrassed for them, but he had also to encounter difficulties of different sorts. In village Kumarganj under Thana Chandrakona in the Jehanabad Sub-Division of the Hugli District, there was once a very disagreeable friction between two parties, the one for, and the other against, widow marriage. Vidyasagar noted down in his own handwriting statements of the case. Some of these papers, which speak for themselves, are quoted below for the edification of the reader:—

"A portion of the inhabitants of Comergonge, Thannah Chundrakonah in the Sub-Division of Jehanabad have formed themselves into a party to support the cause of the marriage of widows. This party having come to know that their opponents in the village would not permit them either to join with them in the worship of the idol Shiva or to offer a separate pooja themselves on the occasion of the Churrukpooja and apprehending a breach of the peace if they followed the latter course petitioned the Deputy Magistrate on the 25th Chait last for the aid of the Police. The requisite order on the Daroga of the Thannah was passed and at the solicitation of the petitioners the Amlah