362 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Dec x, 1893. 
same time as lier future hufiband. Mr. W. Clark 
was the first iiiercliant to introrliicp Manrhester 
wools to Ceylon. 
From )836 to 1859 Dr. Elliott's career was 
widely identified with the Hoc-ial and material 
progress of the Colony.. He aciiieved great 
popularity and esteem as a very capable physician 
and a bold as well as skilful surj^eon. He was 
the first to cut down to the liver- ;f of (abscefis on 
that organ, and he did so in sjiite of serious 
remonstrances from other medical men of the 
day in Ceylon, at a tin)e wh^n the anajsthetics 
and antiseptics, now so largely used, were 
unknownaids in surgery. A rmy Surgeon Cameron 
was one of the remonstrants, but he confessed 
afterwards in the LancM how he had watclied 
and profited by the success of Dr. Elliott's 
operations. Dr. Elliott acquired immense in- 
fluence medically with the natives at a time 
when European medical aid was, as a rule, 
scorned by them. He was trufeted and beloved 
by the European and Native community of 
Colombo beyond any other European who ever 
lived in Ceylon, and it wa.s through his influence 
that the Ceylon Government in 1858 created 
a Civil Medical Department, of which he 
was appropriately named the first Chief, although 
hs sui vived at the post for less than a year. 
The compiler of t)ie present notice arrived in 
Ceylon two years after his death, but he found then, 
and for many years after, that Dr. Elliott''* name 
was famliar as a hovisphold word in Colombo 
The doctor was the ^ci^^e^t and most sympathetic 
of frienfls aijd ph^^Bicians, and yet withal very 
practical ancj .shrewd. One characteristic stoi-y 
Mas connected with his choice of the "Captain's 
Carder" penin.sula as the site of his chief 
hospital. Asked why he fixed on that spot, 
the Dr. replied: " Von see they are going to place 
the Railway terminal .station close by ; now they 
are sure to have accidents, on the Kadugaunawa 
incline especially, and as y\ e can have a siding 
from the station to the hospital, wliat so con- 
venient as to be able to run the train with the 
woup,ded, right to the door of our wards, where 
we can speedily get the broken bones put right '*" 
and one of the softest-hearted men living rubbed 
his hands at the thought of the good he and his 
staff might do on the occurrence of the in- 
evitable accident ! Eventually, Borella became 
the site of the Civil Hospital ; but fortunately 
no such accident as Dr. Elliott feared has 
ever occurred on our Colombo- Kandy line since 
its opening, very much owing to the steadiness 
of the broad-gajuge and, the careful way in 
which traffic is w orked under the block system. 
To tell ,the , H^pry J of Dr. Elliott's work among 
the poor of Colombo as Chi'istian philanthropist, 
as wbll as jiliystiiiicrf, ever ready to help without 
fee or i-eward, would require a volume in it««lf. 
' Few better men have ever lived in the inland or 
j have done V»etter work for their axlopted land- 
j As Editor. Dr. Elliott wai> iipnght and out 
! spoken and a rapvii, gotxl writer. A»- an 
I Irishman l)orn, he liiwl a rttAy wit and wai* 
! prompt to act, a> the followiujf anecdote »liew>». 
In the verj' early daye of the (JiBert-«r% on one 
occasion a contribution intended for tlitf Cfirotii^c 
was left at the Observer oftice containing, it 
' was believed, an article by the Governor. A 
notice appeared in that day's issue of tlie 
Observer : — " A parcel said to If from King'K 
House and addressed to the Chrvnidc office, left 
by mistake at tlii.s oflTice V>y a momited orderly, 
' can be had on applioation '": FollowiuK the 
strong opposition to (;o\ernment in Sir H. 
NV. Horton's teiiu came a .-pell of more general 
accord with official action in the time of 
I that very high-minded statesman, the Right 
! Hon. Stewart Mackenzie ; but the <lays of 
' Sir Emerson Tennent and expeoially Lord 
I Torrington found the Obserrrr again in strong 
ojiposition to the (iovernment, ami their ra^li, 
new-fangled notion^ of taxation and hara><Bing 
legislation. The disturbance which took idace 
in tho interior — notably in the Matale and 
Kurunegala J)istrict»<— and which wa.» mag- 
nified into a " ISebellion, " although not a Kritish 
.soldier received a scratch, was very much oc- 
casioned by the feari^i of the people as to lliu 
new taxes. So high did the excitement reach 
in Colonilx), and so enraged were the (iovernor 
and the Colonial Secretary with the Obaerirris 
wiitings, that it wa.-* reporteil on good authority, 
that warrants \\crc agreed on at one time in tlws 
E.xecutive Council for tlie arrest of lioth Editor.- 
(Mr. A. M. Ferguson had joined Dr. Elliott as 
Co- Editor in 1846), and were it not for the 
wiser counsels and sturdy resistance of both the 
Chief Justice (Sir Anthony Gliphant) and the 
Queen's Advocate (Mr. Sclby), it was believed 
I Lord Torrington would have been foolish enough 
to have fors»alled ilr. Eyre s action in Jamaica 
by casting his t^vo political foes into jail." 
His Lordship, however, paid off' his score against 
the Doctor on one occasion when the latter bea/ded 
a deputation of residents in the Pettah (then 
occupied ))y a large number of Dutch descendants) 
on the " Verandah (Question. " His Excellency 
■ received the deputation very coldly, with 
a bow, listened to their written and .^pokeu 
statements, and then merely bowed, advanced a step 
and bowed, and so on, until he bowed them out of 
the room without uttering a word ! The fi^^ as 
well as waim-hearted Irish leader was furioua 
* Dr. Elliott too was warne 1 by friends not to 
visit Eandy after "Martial law" was proclaimed 
(very unnecessarily) there. 
