Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/95

had the volumes in his possession only for about a week ; into six of them he only dipped ; but he closely examined one covering the greater portion of the North-West Provinces, Oudh, Behar, parts of Bundelcund and parts of the Panjab ; and as far as possible verified the entries referring to those districts with which he had special personal acquaintance. Many of the entries reported conversations between men of the lowest classes, ^*all going to show that these poor men were pervaded with a sense of the hopelessness of the existing state of affairs ; that they were convinced that they would starve and starve and die, and that they wanted to do something. . . . They were going to do something and stand by each other, and that something meant violence," for innumerable entries referred to the secretion of old swords, spears, and matchlocks, which would be ready when required. It was not supposed that the immediate result, in its initial stages, would be a revolt against our Government, or a revolt at all, in the proper sense of the word. What was predicted was a sudden violent outbreak of sporadic crimes, murders of obnoxious persons, robbery of bankers, looting of bazaars. "In the existing state of the lowest half-starving classes, it was considered that the first few Berimes would be the signal for hundreds of similar ones, I and for a general development of lawlessness, paralysing the authorities and the respectable classes. It was con- sidered certain also, that everywhere the small bands would begin to coalesce into larger ones, like drops of water on a leaf ; that all the bad characters in the country would join, and that very soon after the bands attained formidable proportions, a certain small number of the educated classes, at the time desperately, perhaps un- reasonably, bitter against Government would join the movement, assume here and there the lead, give the outbreak cohesion, and direct it as a national revolt."