Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/607

560 Jagadananda Mukharji, Peary Churn Sircar, Prasanna Kumar Sarwadhikari, Kristo Das Pal, Durga Charan Laha, and fifteen other respectable personages waited upon Sir Cecil Beadon, the then Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, as representatives of the petitioners. Raja Satya Saran Ghoshal, as foreman of the delegates, read out the petition, and presented it in the hands of the Lieutenant Governor, who said in reply:—

"Rajah,—I have great pleasure in receiving this numerously signed memorial, and in assuring you and the other highly respectable gentlemen who compose this deputation, that I shall gladly use my best endeavours to procure the enactment of a law to restrain the abuses attending, the practice of Polygamy among Hindus, and to impose upon a custom, which I cannot but regard as altogether demoralizing, the utmost degree of restriction consistent with the reasonable opinions and wishes of the intelligent Hindu public.

"I have taken a deep interest in the question since it was first seriously agitated by our late lamented friend, Babu Rama Prosad Ray, in February, 1857, when a great number of petitions on the subject had been presented to the Legislative Council. Sir John Peter Grant promised very shortly to introduce a Bill for the abolition of Hindu Polygamy, and he would no doubt have fulfilled his promise but for the mutiny of the native army, which broke out soon afterwards.