Page:Nil Durpan.djvu/195

 notion of the high indelicacy of any woman who exposes her face in public, or rides out in company with a gentleman. I have heard such remarks made of my own wife; but I treated them as a specimen of village ignorance. Sir F. Shore in his "Notes on Indian Affairs" states instances of a similar kind, and Lieutenant Burton, who went disguised as a pilgrim to Mecca, mentions the greatest reproach the pilgrims there made against the English was, that they shook hands with their neighbours' wives; I regret, however, I did not append a note of explanation to this part.

I hold in my hand the first drama ever translated, and that by an illustrious Jugde of this Court—Sir W. Jones—in order to give a view of Hindu society. Similar service was rendered by Horace H. Wilson, by Dr. Taylor and various other persons.

I beg to say I was far from wishing to vilify planters generally, though from sincere conviction and enquiry opposed to the system. Thus, when summoned before the Indigo Commission, my evidence there was considered even by the planters' friends as moderate and free from invective. I was elected a member of a sub-committee of the Calcutta Missionary Conference to watch the progress of the Indigo controversy, and it was never objected then that any of my actions in connection with this Conference on this subject were for the purpose of vilifying. I have never lived near planters, nor have I had any personal altercation with them that would lead me to a vindictive course.

I ask when hundreds—yea, thousands—of Bengali books were submitted by me during the last ten years to the notice of Europeans of influence, was the Nil Durpan to be the only exception? And wherefore? The ryot was a dumb animal who did not know his ruler's language. And at the time of this Nil Durpan appearing, matters on the Indigo controversy were assuming a threatening aspect; so it was important that men of influence should know that the wound was not a surface one, but required deep probing. Could I as a clergyman have withheld a work of this sort which indicated some of the causes of the deep-seated aversion of ryots to Indigo cultivation? This work, the Nil Durpan, was sent to me as hundreds of Vernacular books have been, because it is known in many quarters that I take a deep interest in Vernacular literature. Here is an illustration: these two Vernacular books were sent to me