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THE SAMETSHIKHAR AFFAIRS.
of the district and the result was that it was found to be teeming with possbilities of cholera, plague and leprosy. The Government of India wasn't in the least impressed by this awful list of disadvantages, and upheld the Lieutenant Governor. Now the Jains have changed their tactics. They have ceased to pose as benefactors of the would-be visitors to Paresnath, or to worry about its supposed unhealthiness. They have come out into the open and told the Government frankly that they want the whole hill for themselves and will fight tooth and nail to retain their monopoly. They are holding meetings and threatening to join the "unrestful" elements unless they have their way. We are fully persuaded that this sudden change of front will
A friend of mine has drawn my atten tion to an article named 'stage thunder' taken from the 'Empire' by the 'Bombay Gazette' in its issue of the 5th inst., to enlighten its readers by placing before them what it styles "contemporary opinion." I believe that the 'Bombay Gazette' has shown a sad lack of discrimination in doing so. The artiale has subsequently been reprinted in some other papers also, so I refrain from quoting it here.
This article reminds me of the article contributed to the 'Englishman' by
SHRI SAMETSHIKHERJI AND THE ANGLO-INDIANS.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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do them no good whatever. It strikes a hollow note, and suggests that in India, as in America, rich men bent on getting their own way are prepared to go to any lengths. Moreover if the Jains are going to take tho question to the Privy Council all this sound and fury are worse than thrown away. Law and precedent are the only considerations which will avail them there, and if there is any law which permits any body of men to monopolise a range of hills, they will doubtless receive the full benefit of it.
I leave this upon my learned Jain friends to pay the Empire in its own coins which interprets our policy in connection with our most sacred Tirth as the dog in the manger Policy.
Mr. Cantwell, who had admittedly a pecuniary interest in the matter, wherein he quite wantonly and recklessly in the typical John Bull fashion reviles at the Jains, and terms their 'Arati-a form of worship-as 'devilish,' adding in brackets to make the cup of his spite full to the brim, that he does not find any more hideous word in the English language to give vent to his feelings! He even goes to the length of denouncing the Jains as people capable of forging an Akbar's sunnad, and for a while quite forgets himself
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