Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/604

Rh another such Law against their will. Moreover, the great Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, which shook the foundation of the British Empire in India, having broken out shortly after the legislation on widow marriage, the authorities were too deeply engrossed with the thoughts of suppressing the rebellion to attend to anything else of this nature.

But Vidyasagar was a man of great strength of mind, fixedness of purpose, and perseverance. He was not a man to lose heart and give up all attempts on one failure. After the lapse of nearly nine years, he again took up the subject, and requested his playmates to give one more lift to his kite. On the 1st February, 1866, he again submitted to Government a petition, for the prevention of polygamy, subscribed by nearly 21,000. persons, among whom there were such influential and leading members, such as Maharaja Satis Chandra Ray Bahadur of Nuddea, Raja Satya Saran Ghoshal of Bhukailas, Raja Pratap Chandra Sinha of Kandi, and others. The petition ran as follows:—.

"To the Honorable Sir Cecil Beadon, "Lieutenant Governor of Bengal.

"The humble petition of the undersigned Hindu inhabitants of the Province of Bengal.

"Respectfully sheweth—That about nine years ago no less than 32 petitions signed by nearly twenty-five thousand Hindus of Bengal, were pre-