( '6 ) 
swaruy was being lionised by English society, 
which provoked a well-known parody by 
Lorenz, commencing : — 
O kiss me qaick and goi Henry, 
Kiss me qaick and go. 
Old Loudon streets can't hold us both, 
So kiss me e[aick and go. 
Coomaraswamy was however the first 
Hindoo barrister. The fact was noted in 
the London papers, and the London Times 
drew attention to it in a leader. — Yours 
truly, J. R. WEINMAN. 
SIR COOMARA SWAMY AND THE ABOLI- 
TION OF RELIGIOUS DISABILITY 
AT THE ENGLISH BAR. 
Colombo, Feb. 4. 
Dear Sir, — The authority for ray statement 
that "Sir George Jepsel was, for many years 
after being called to the Bar, so situated that any 
one might have driven him from it, because, 
being a Jew, lie was not qualified to be a member 
of the Bar,'' is the Encyclopcedia Britannica, 
edition 1902, vol. 29, p. 745 (Article, " Jessel"). 
"When this was +lie ca«e with the Jews, already 
an influential )3art of the English community, no 
wonder the obstacle seemed insurmountable by 
other tion-Chrisiians. 
We who live in these happier times can hardly 
realise the severity of the religious disabilities 
which prevailed in England till recently. The 
principle that none but persons professing- the 
escablished religion was eligible for public 
employment was adopted by the LegislatureKS of 
both England and Scotland soon after the 
Reformation. Political necessity or religious 
bigotry continued to enforce the direst penalties 
against recusants, whether Roman Catholic or 
Non-Conforroist Christians or non-Christians. 
Only in 1871 were the last traces of these 
disqualifications removed by Mr. Gladstone's 
University Tests Act, which abolished in the. 
Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, 
subscriptions to the Articles of the Church of 
England and all declarations and oaths respecting 
religious belief (except in the case of degrees in 
divinity and of divinity and Hebrew professor- 
ships), and all conipuhory attendance at public 
worship. 
It was because Lord Houghton knew the great re- 
ligious obstacle which Sir (looniara Swamy had to 
suriTiount in getting called to the Bar— an obstacle 
which involved him in labours and anxieties that 
undermined Ida health and even threatened his 
life— that Lord Houghton said that Sir Cooniara 
Swamy "never received due credit for the 
energy with which he opened the Bar of England 
to all the Eastern subjects of the Empress of 
India" and that "this act deserved a public 
recogniti(Tn, and even he would not have done it but 
for the assi.'^tanee of Lord Brougham which he was 
forinnate ent ugh to secure." 
My object in publishing Lord Houghton's letter 
was to make known a leaf from the past, an 
interesting addition to local biographical history, 
and to awaken in the present apathetic generation 
somewhat ol the indomitable courage and energy 
with which their predecessors attacked difficulties 
and overthrew abuses and won the esteem of the 
world. 
May young Ceylon emulate the example of 
those great men, of Wall and Lorenz, Ooomara 
Swamy, Dias and Alwis, and, rejecting *' the 
barren optimistic sophistries of comfortable moles," 
strive unhasting, unresline, for the public weal ! 
—Yours truly, P. ARUNACHALAM. 
THE " OBSERVER '"S CHRISTMAS 
SOUVENIR AND "DAYS OF OLD': 
INTERESTING REMINISCENCES FROM 
" W. M. L." AS AN OLD KANDY 
RESIDENT. 
Yesterday's mail brought us the follow- 
ing interesting notes from the veteran 
Secretary to the " Ceylon Association in 
London " who was, for many years, a 
leader in planting, mercantile and political 
matters in our Central Capital. Mr. Leake, 
writing under date, London, 9th January, 
says : — 
"Many thanks for your ' X'mas Souvenir.' It 
stirs memories of times long past and of almost 
forgotten ccntroversies wherein many a hard 
knock was cheerfully given and received. Well 
do I remember the publication of Sir Hercules' 
despatch that you quote and the storm aroused 
not only by the matter, but also the manner, of 
the publication. As to the latter I had some 
share : Willam Rose had been up in Nuwara 
Eliya, where the Governor and the Queen's Advo- 
cate (Sir R. Morgan) then were, and to him was 
entrusted a copy of the famous despatch to be 
delivered to me in Kandy with instructions to deal 
with it as seemed tit to me. I lost no time in 
handiu? it to the ' Kandy Herald,' in whose sheets 
the text first saw the light. 
"The episode of the rise and fall of the one 
Kandy journal was for me a curious experience — 
amidst much therein that was comic to a degree 
there was also an element of woeful tragedy. I 
had nothing to do with the starting of the paper, 
nor had I any personal interest in it except in so 
far as I was a resident in Kandy. But I knew the 
enterprising proprietors, Dr. Baylis and Charles 
Tottenham, very well ; and on the eve of the 
appearance of the first number, I found myself 
called on to write the opening editorial on the 
ground that the Editor, Mr, Arthur Jones, brother 
of Keppel of the ' Times,' just arrived from home, 
knew nought of the burning local questions of the 
day. From that time I gave my friends any 
reasonable help ; and I believe that the poor paper 
might have flourished, had it not been for the sad 
fate of the Editor, for whom colonial politics 
proved altogether too exhausting. He came to me 
one morning, in the most serious manner begging 
me to protect him from Dr. Baylis, who he said 
had insisted on bringing a band of music into his 
bedroom and would not go away. Poor fellow ! 
he went quite out of his wits and very shortly died. 
The paper, falling then under the direct manage- 
ment of Dr. Baylis, who cared for nothing but 
spiritualism, came likewise to a speedy end. 
" All interested being dead, I feel that I can do 
no harm in gratifying any curiosity you may feel as 
to these details of old and stirring times. 
"February 17ch, 1903, will be the 40th anniver- 
sar of my first election by the P. A. as Secretary ! 
What changes since that day 1— W. M. L." 
