ANGLO BENGALESE.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1998, 31 May 1875, Page 3

ANGLO BENGALESE.

A memoir which has recently been published in Calcutta affords some good illustration of.this qurecr patois. The subject of the memoir, the lale Judge Mookerjee, was one of the few natives who have ever attained to the dignity of a judgeship in the High Court of Calcutta. Long before his elevation to the bench he had been widely known as one of the most successful lawyers of the native bar in India, and, a? the Honourable Justice Moolcerjee, he well sustained his earlier reputation. The" biographer is Eabu Mohindro Nauth Mookerjee, a teacher in one of the schools that are feeders of the Calcutta University. He is a nephew of the late judge whose life he narrates ; and in his book he speaks of Irs uncle familiarly as "Hon'ble Mookerjee," or more shortly as H.M. The introductory paragraph is so charmingly naive, and at the same time so characteristic,, that we must quote it at length:-—." Let me hold my Penna after a few months, to'write the memoir of the individual above- ,. ; but quid ajis ? if any one put me ;^mcb>a query, I will be utterly thrown into |Ta great jeopardy and hurley-burley, and '> aayr-a fool of myself! .As a spider spins the web for its own destruction,^ as when the clown who wps busy in digging a grave for ' Ophelia' was asked by Hamlet —'Whose grave's this, sirrah?' said, 1 mine, sir,' so in writing one's memoic I am as if to dig my own grave in it." The intention of the biographer is stated-;to be to: give some incidents of Judge Mookerjee's life and " what they resulted into," until "by dint of nude energy" he became a judge, and ''sat arrayed in majestic glory, viewing with unparalleled and mute rapture his friends and admirers lifting up their hands with heartfelt glee and laudation for his success in life." It appears that the future judge in his. early lift was atypical specimen of the mild Hindu; for we are told that " little Mookerjee never had a snip-snap with "any of his college boys, and-was; indeed, of so forbearing a disposition^ that he would not even notice what impulsive natures would" hare signally retaliated as an insult." He was, able, however, eten as a.. boy, to use bis tongue lometimes with effect, as may be seen from an anecdote narrated to prove that his accomplishments, "though not very garlish, were nevertheless of a most solid character." One day " Little Mookerjee with some of his brothers and cousins went to see the monument (the Ochterlony Monument at .Calcutta). When he had -ascended a few steps he received-a severe blow on his head which rendered him •jmpercipienfc for a few moments/ His asskilant turned out.to be "a Cyclopean English sailor^' who, on being ex--postulatpd with, probably indulged in naparliamentary language, for we are >tol<l that "the reply stung spoor little Mookerjee to the quick, and he addressed his assailant for more than an hour, dwelling chiefly on the principles of „ Christianity arid enlarging on the duty of regarding all men as fellow-brethren . without .distinction of oreed_ or. colour." After thisV'we are not sirprised to hear ;that " the savage- heart of the sailor was moved."—Saturday Review.