lluded to the subject of
the organization of committees which we desired to carry into effect, and
urged that, as far as possible, members should avoid going into petty
local grievances, and devote their attention to those large general
questions which affect the whole province. After I had sat down a
translation of the Dewan's address was then delivered in Kanarese, for the
benefit of the representatives who did not understand English, and the
Assembly afterwards adjourned till the following morning.

After the Assembly had adjourned the members of the central committee met
in a private room, and we agreed on the terms of the address to the
Maharajah. Then we returned to the Hall, as it had been thought advisable
to take up several matters which had not been discussed at our first
preliminary meeting, and it was again proposed that I should take the
chair. The first proposal made was that members, instead of being annually
elected to the Assembly, should be elected for three years, and this was
unanimously carried. A leading native member next rose and proposed that
no girl under ten years of age should be given in marriage. Then ensued a
scene of excitement that baffles description. The representatives who, the
moment before, had been quite calm and collected, and who looked so
passive that it seemed that nothing could have aroused them from a
condition of profound composure, became suddenly electrified. A burst of
tongues arose simultaneously all over the Assembly. Several members got up
and tried to speak at once, and one of these (I think I see him now), a
tall, stout, elderly man with a voice of thunder, and his appearance much
accentuated by an enormous bamboo pen which he had thrust behind his ear,
entered into an altercation with the proposer of the motion. I had no
president's bell, and if I had had one I am sure I might have rung it in
vain, and I thought it best to sit still for a little time, and let the
representatives liberate their minds. Presently, and the moment I saw the
first signs of an abatement of the excitement, I rose, and, with a slight
signal of my hand quieted the audience, and observed that, as this was a
subject as to which there was evidently much difference of opinion, and as
it was very desirable that, as regards the measures proposed at our
preliminary meetings,[13] there should be a complete unanimity of opinion,
I begged leave to suggest to the meeting that the subject might be
adjourn