murders with approval ; and the cowardly and atrocious act of committing murders with bombs not only seems to meet with your approval, but you hail the advent of the bomb in India as if something has come to India for its good. As I said it can be only a diseased and perverted mind that can think that bombs are legitimate instruments in political agitations. And it must be a diseased mind that could ever have thought that the articles you wrote were articles that could have been legitimately written. Your hatred of the Ruling Class has not disappeared during these ten years. And in these articles, deliberately and defiantly written week by week, not as you say, on the spur of the moment, but a fortnight after that cruel and cowardly outrage had been committed upon two innocent English women, you wrote about bombs as if they were legitimate instruments in political agitations. Such journalism is a curse to the country. I feel much sorrow in sentencing you. I have considered most anxiously in the case of a verdict being returned against you, what sentence I should pass upon you. * * * Having regard to your age and circumstances, I think it is most desirable, in the interest of peace and order and in the interest of the country which you profess to love, that you should be out of it for some time."
When on the morrow, July 23rd, Mr. Tilak's 53rd birthday, the news of his conviction spread like wild fire, most impressive demonstrations were witnessed. The bazars were spontaneously closed ; schools and colleges were deserted. The Mill-hands of Bombay struck work for six days in honour of Mr. Tilak.
