(( 87 ) 
Then, the reference to the Heliotropes in 
the garden at the back of the Council 
Chamber, " a recent gift of William Fer- 
guson,' the genial, popular Bot;inist of the 
day; and to "Gibson, the honourable friend 
of times gone by— stout, hearty, with huge 
rolls of double chin"! I see the portly old 
man before me, but not particularly hearty 
in after years, as he would withdraw his 
gouty foot from the stool under the table, 
and rise wearily to answer some question 
of Coomaraswamy's, and to sit on him ! 
Then, Richard Morgan, " a shorter, but a 
more developed corporation," with his length 
of ribbon rosy-red, wherewith they bound 
the Colony"! Morgan had advised " the 
General sitting in the chair "—O'Brien, whose 
son Terence was tried by Court Martial for 
his part in the Sikh Cooly affair afterwards, 
and defended by Lorenz— that, as the Un- 
officials had been appointed by the Crown, 
the Council was fully constituted without 
them until their resignations had been 
accepted by Her Majesty! And the Colonel, 
who welcomed the ex-Unofficials for the 
Christmas sitting, with his song The rebels 
are coming: hooray, hooray! was Sim ; while, 
I suppose", the (;ollector of Customs, who 
was fast asleep when roused by Lorenz's 
cries of No, No, was poor old Stephens, the 
somnolent. It is a pity the lecture was not 
illustrated by lantern slides. — Yonrs truly, 
SENKX. 
[It was our fortune to be alone at the helm of 
the Observer al the time of the death of two of 
Ceylon's greatest sons :— Sir Richard Morgan 
ami Mr. C. A. Lorenz, and we tried hard, 
at very short notice, to do justice to both,^ 
so far as a newspaper " in memuriam " 
notice could do so. Our long article on Kir 
Richard was a,fterwards taken over in full 
for his "Life" by Mr. Digby ; and in the 
case of "Lorenz," a sense of deep sympathy 
entered into our writing ; for, it was truly 
sad that so brilliant a man and earnest a 
worker should be cut off at so early an age. 
We can recall one long and most pleasant 
interview with the then Burgher M.L.C. 
Left in 1863 to conduct our bi-weekly paper— 
the three papers, " Observer," " Times " and 
" Examiner " made a daily issue between 
them in those good old days -we had also 
to bring out the Directory for that year, 
and it was certainly about the neatest and 
most attractive book with its illustrations, up 
to that date published in Ceylon. So said 
Mr. Lorenz very heartily when he called for 
a "copy one Saturday afternoon in Baillie 
Street and gave us half-au-hour of his lively 
entertaining conversation. Seven years after 
in St. James's Hall, London, we had the 
opportunity of watching Charles Dickens 
giving what proved to be his final 
public reading; and again and again were 
we reminded by the large, bright observant 
eyes of the brilliant Ceylonese. Lorenz 
was indeed the Charles Dickens as well 
as the Washington Irving of Ceylon ; but 
alsis ! as " Senex " shews, how few there are 
to catch up the points of witticism so 
entirely applicable and patent to all in our 
island world during the " Sixties.".— Ed. L.R.] 
DAYS OF OLD. 
Anuradhapura, Feb. 28. 
Dear Sir, — The letters " Ciicul-us Ecclesiasticus'' ia 
favouring the public which are most interesting, and 
the information supplied ia such as few besides the 
only state-paid Clergyman in our Colonial list can _ 
supply. I sea in his letter ennmeratini^ tho 
Ceylonese alumni of the old Bishop's College, 
Calcutta, he has omitted one name, that of ilr 
J L Flanderki, Assistant Government Agent and 
District Jacige, Nuwarakalawiya (February 1854-1860, 
aud again from Mareli 1863-August 1806), Ho is 
the only Burtjher A.G.A. in our aunals, which o£ 
itself marks him out tor distinction. In this con- 
nection the_ following extract from a letter of 
"good Dr. Loos," as yonr London correspondent 
styled him recently,— will be read with interest. 
" Another fact with regard to Anuradhapura is that 
Flanderka was Assistant Agent there. He was in 
the Academy with me aud a class-fellow. Ha became 
a student in Bishop's College in Calcutta, and was 
there while I was in the Medical College. On his 
return to Ceylon, he was fortunate eooagh to obtain 
an appointment in the Civil Service and became 
a prot'i/c of the Eajah of Jaffna (Mr Dyke). I never 
met him after his return to Ceylon, and my last 
meeting with him was on board the vessel iu 
Calcutta iu which I was about to .return to Ceylon. 
He made me a present of the Book of Common 
Prayer which I used for some years." Mr Flanderka 
probably was a Divinity Student when at Calcutta. 
Dyke's good opinioa of him was fully endorsed by 
the Governor (Sir Lletiry Ward). This is what Mr 
levers quotes from His Excellency's memorandum 
of his second tour through Tamankadnwa and 
Nuwarakalawiya in 18.56 [? IS.bS or 1859. J 
"At Habburenne (Haburana) we were met by the 
Assistant Agent of Nuwarakalawiya. Mr Flanderka, 
an active and intelligent public officer in charge of 
a very extensive district, which, from its isolated 
position and the strictly agricultural pursuits of the 
inhabitants, has had little share hitherto in the 
improvements that are tiiking place around it. Mr 
Flanderka is now endeavouring to iutrodace the 
Irrigation Oi'dinauce, which is peculiarly adapted to 
the wants of the popule.tion ; and though there was 
seme misapprehension in the framing of the rules 
first sent in, I have no doubt that the next attempt 
will be more successful." [But re this Ordinance 
in p. Ill of levers we read " Sir Henry Ward's 
Irrigation Ordinance was a dead letter so far as 
the Northern Province (which included Nuwara- 
kalawiya up to 1873) was concerned. It was not 
suited to the circumstances of the tank country."] 
In levers p 43 we read "In 1859 judgment was 
given iu District Court No. 15G by Mr Flanderka, 
Assistant Government Agent and District Judge. 
This was a case between the 5wo branches of tue 
Suriyakumara family, commonly known as " Bulan- 
knlam " aud " Nuwarawewa," from the two tanks 
near which the Walauwas are built. By this judg- 
ment the estate was divided between these two 
branches of the family, and the rights as to the 
Bo-tree, shrine aud election of Anunayaka, with 
other rights as chief of Nuwarakalawiya, were 
decreed to belong to the plaintiff, Suriyakumara 
Wannasinha Bandn of Bnlauknlani, sou of the 
Mndiyanse, who died in 1S30." Messrs. Advocates 
Vanderwall and D-mnwill.x from Kandy appeared 
for the respective parties on very haudfome re- 
tainers. The defendants it seems, weie a little too 
previous for they conveyed their advocate Mr Uuna- 
willa into the town, with great pomp iu a pro- 
cession of elephants itc. The judgment went however 
for the plaintiff, r.nd it was Mr Vanderwatl's good 
fortune to be carried back to Kaudy with equal 
demoDBtratioDS after the case had been ican '. 
V,\ H. S. 
