er's character by recording of him that "his disregard of
luxury, simplicity of manner, careful attention to the wants of the
soldiers under his command, and enthusiasm for duty and right won him
the admiration of his men. His journals testify to his religious
convictions, while his life was one long protest against oppression,
injustice and wrongdoing. Generous to a fault, a radical in politics,
yet an autocrat in government, hot-tempered and impetuous, he was a
man to inspire strong affection or the reverse, and his enemies were
as numerous as his friends."
Altogether a very different character from that which all and sundry
are warned to avoid by the--to a great extent--satirical word-picture
recorded by Ali Baba.
No. 4
WITH THE ARCHDEACON
In this article Ali Baba has pourtrayed with infinite skill and
geniality the many-sided character of the late Joseph Baly, M.A., who
was Archdeacon of Calcutta from 1872 until he retired from India in
1883. Appointed to the Bengal Ecclesiastical establishment in 1861,
Mr. Baly served as Chaplain at Sealkote, Simla, and Allahabad until
1870, when, while on furlough in England, he acted as Rector of
Falmouth until 1872. In 1885 he was appointed chaplain at the church
in Windsor Park, built by Queen Victoria, in which appointment he died
in 1909, aged eighty-five.
From the commencement of his Indian career the Reverend gentleman
interested himself in that burning question of the employment of the
Anglo-Indian and Eurasian community of India; a large indigenous and
permanent element in the population, the disposal of which is still a
question of very great public importance, and its practical solution a
pressing necessity. The Archdeacon had this question, paraphrased by
Ali Baba as that of the "Mean Whites," greatly at heart, and the
conclusions he arrived at and suggestions made by him from time to
time, ably and vigorously summarized in a paper he read before the
Bengal Social Science Association on May 1st, 1879, in Calcutta, were
productive of considerable good.
Archdeacon Baly's predecessor was the Venerable John Henry Pratt, an
attached friend of Aberigh-Mackay's father, to whom his book, _From
London to Lucknow_, published in 1860, was "affectionately inscribed."
Certain traits in the character of this Archdeacon known to Ali Baba
by tradition are pourtrayed in the concluding portion of the paper.
No. 5
WITH THE SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT
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