sed of having murdered a slave girl in
her service. The Governor himself, who, like a doge of Venice, was
both ruler and judge, was on the bench, and the twelve jurymen gave a
unanimous verdict that Mrs. Dawes was 'guilty of the murther, but not
in mannere and forme,' by which they seem to have meant that the
circumstances of the case exonerated her from the capital charge.
Being pressed to give a verdict 'without exception or limitation,'
they brought in a unanimous verdict of 'not guilty,' whereupon the
Governor felt that, although the woman had been guilty of a crime, he
had no help for it but to set her free. He thereupon wrote to the
Directors in England, expressing his disapproval of 'such an
unexpected verdict,' and notifying that in his ignorance of the law
and its formalities he was by no means confident that he had done the
right thing; and the end of it was that the Governor, presumably with
the Directors' approval, created two justices, on whom was thereafter
to fall the responsibility of hearing all such serious cases. Change
upon change! and to-day the Madras High Court, with the various other
courts in different parts of the city, is a very visible symbol of the
serious reality of the administration of justice.

[Illustration: ST. THOME CATHEDRAL.]

The story of the origin of the principal literary and scientific
institutions in Madras is interesting. In the olden times, when there
were no literary or scientific magazines by which an 'exile in the
East' could keep himself in touch with the developments of genius
throughout the world, people in India with literary or scientific
tastes had to be content to gratify their tastes with local
researches, and to depend upon one another for any interchange of
ideas. This meant that old-time literary and scientific societies in
India were naturally more enthusiastic than most such societies in
India are now. Madras indeed has been particularly fortunate in her
time in having had residents who were earnest in cultured pursuits,
and whose work survives, directly or indirectly, at the present day.

For example, it was an old-time Madras Civilian, with a hobby for
astronomy and with a private observatory of his own, that created a
local interest in the science and is thereby to be regarded as the
originator of the Madras Observatory--the first British Observatory in
the East, a famous institution in olden days, which secured for Madras
the honour--which is still her