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I regret to have to begin this week's letter with the announcement of a death in high circles Miss Ida Fitzpatrick, the youngest daughter of Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick, succumbed to an attack of typhoid fever last Tuesday morning. She had been ailing for over a fortnight, and all that medical skill and parental watchfulness could do had availed her nothing. Her death has cast a gloom over Hyderabad society, and her father who has lost two daughters since coming over here needs all the strength that religion and sympathy can impart to bear up against his bereavement.
How the vacancy created on the High Court Bench by the retirement of Mr. Ekbal Ali, came to be not filled up, or rather considered to be a supernumerary office, it is interesting to know. Soon after Ekbal Ali's retirement the rulers de facto held a consultation in camera with the Nawab Imad Jung Bahadur, Chief Justice, as to the appointment of a successor on the Bench. The Nawab Imad Jung suggested two names for the vacancy. One was a Mahomedan who is a District Judge, and the other a Hindu in the Small Causes Court. Being outside the pale of favourites, the Mahomedan could not be nominated to the post and the Hindu, being a Hindu, could not receive favourable consideration at the hands of the rulers. So they hummed and hawed for a while, and then they separated and resolved to see what they could do for themselves. But the Nawab Imad Jung was not going to allow himself to be reduced to a nonentity even where matters regarding his department were concerned. He evidently took stock of the chances there were of a worthless man being forced on him, and preferring over-working himself and his colleagues to having the whole judicial work thrown into a mess by the introduction of a good- for-nothing “hand," met his colleagues in the High Court rooms and with their knowledge and consent reported to the Government that the High Court was already sufficiently strong and there was no necessity for another Judge. And the report had, mirabile dictu the desired effect.
