HIS DEPARTURE FOR ENGLAND. 117 more than three hundred candidates appeared at the Civil Service Examination, and four Indian youths, viz., Messrs. Romesh Chunder Dutt, Behary Lai Gup- ta, Surendra Nath Banerjee, and Sreepad Babaji Tha- kur passed the test successfully. Babu Surendranath secured the 38th place in the list, in order of merit, while the other three obtained the 3rd, 14th and the 39th places, respectively. But the success of Mr Banerjee soon afterwards proved a thorn on his side as the Civil Service Commi- ssioners raised an objection to his admission on the ground of his having exceeded the prescribed limit of age viz., twenty years, at the time of passing the Civil Service Examination. They urged that if he was six- teen years at the time of the Entrance Examination in 1863, he would be more than 20 years at the time of passing the Civil Service in 1869. The Civil Service Commissioners accordingly removed his name from the list without making any adequate enquiry into the matter. Mr. Banerjee, thereupon, moved the Queen's Bench for a writ of mandamus which was readily granted by the Judges, among whom was the late Chief Justice Cockburn. The Judges expressed their strongest surprize at the conduct of the Commis- sioners, upon whom a rule was issued to show cause why they should not make a fresh enquiry into the matter. The Civil Service Commissioners did not con- test the matter. They thought discretion was the better part of valour, and after the strong expression of opi- nion from the Judges of the highest Court in Eng- land, the Commissioners without much further ado re- admitted "him into the Civil Service. Mr.- Sreepad Babaji Thakur, whose name had also been removed upon the same ground, was re-admitted into the Ser- vice at the same time. The difficulty arose purely from a misapprehen- sion as to the Hindoo method of calculating age. We calculate the age in anticipation of the approaching
