188 LIFE OF BABU RAM GOPAL GHOSE. toitted into the institution.. In the grand movement for promoting the consummation of widow-marriage by the natives of Bengal, he also took the greatest interest. But the most eminent services done by Ram Gopal to his country were on some of the occasions on which he delivered his memorable speeches. His oratorical abilities were not of an ordinary description, and extorted admiration from persons whose mother-tongue was the language in which he spoke. At the meeting of the inhabitants of Calcutta for doing honour to Lord Hardinge, h« carried bis pro- position of erecting a statue of the Governor-General against the three eloquent barristers of the time, viz., Messrs. "Turton, Dickens, and Hume." The next day the John Bull — a periodical of the day "made the startling announcement that a young Bengalee orator had floored three English barristers," and called him "the Indian Demosthenes." His speech on the Charter Act meeting was lauded by the Times as a "master-piece of oratory." Mr. Hume, Editor of the Indian Field highly praised his speech on the occasion of the Queen's proclamation, and remarked that, if Ram Gopal had been an^ Englishman, he would have been knighted by the Queen. For bis celebrated speech on the burning-gbat question, he will ever be held in grateful remembrance by the Hindu commu- nity at large, as it saved them from Municipal oppression in what according to their belief, concerned their most sacred interests. Fervent were the blessings pronounced over him with heartfelt gra- titude by many an old Hindu for the signal triumph he achieved over the Government on that memorable occasion." CHAPTER VI. SPECIMENS OF HIS PUBLIC SPEECHES. Impossible as it is for us to reproduce here all the celebrated speeches he delivered on various momen- tous occasions, we remain content with making some random extracts from the collection of his speeches published by Babu Deno Nath Bhunja of Calcutta, in 1 87 1. To notice them all, and criticize them in detail requires a separate volume, and does not fie within
