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Rh have been divided into three factions irrespective of their nationality, creed or occupation—வலங்கையும் இடங்கையும் மகாஜனமும்—(the right-hand, the left-hand and the mahajanam, i. e., the Brahmans). Again, on the 5th November 1652, that is within fifteen years after the foundation of Fort St. George, the inhabitants of Madras were fighting for certain privileges and disturbing the public peace and safety to such an extent that the authorities of the East India Company were obliged to call on the heads of the respective factions to draw up an agreement settling all the differences between the right-hand and left-hand castes. Some sixty years after this, the same tragedy was enacted once more at Chintadripetta, a suburban colony of artizans and merchants, the dispute arising out of the right claimed by certain Chetties or traders to recite Sanskrit Mantras before the idol of Vignesvara. Now coming to the last century, the contest was fought with renewed vigour among the impoverished inhabitants of Seringapatam. This town, shortly after it had fallen into the hands of the English, was found divided into two portions, one occupied mainly by the adherents of the right-hand faction and the other by the upholders of the left. And it is also said that the faction feuds were so rampant there, that the British Government was driven to the necessity of prohibiting for a time marriage and other processions within the Fort in order to preserve public peace and tranquillity. About thirty years ago another