Page:A General Biography of Bengal Celebrities Vol 1.djvu/196

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HIS POLITICAL CAREER. 187 Duties. Subsequently he took on himself the editorship of the Paper, — and when it ceased to live, he started another called the Spectator. In 1833 George Thompson came ont to India. He was a man whose views and sentiments were in perfect accordance with those of Earn Gopal, and they conjointly founded the British Indian Society — a Society where the social, especially the political improvement of India formed the chief topic of discourse. In the year 1848 or 1849, We do not know exactly, he was offered the second Judgeship of the Calcutta Court of Small Causes, but he re- solved, as he said "not to eat the Company's salt." He therefore res- pectfully declined the offer. Ram Gopal wan in every sense a public man. There was hardly any institution, educational, commercial, or political with which bis name has not been inseparably associated. He was a very active- member of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, — a Fellow o£ the Cal- cutta University, and a member of the British Indian Association, the Agri-Horticultural Society, and tho District Charitable Society. To crown all, he was elected in the year 1861, a member of the Beng- al Legislative Council, but owing to failing health he greatly dis- appointed the hopes entertaihed of his career in the Council by his countrymen. His physical ailments subsequently increased, and he died on the 25th of January 1868 of a lingering fever attended by a wasting cough. Ram Gopal took the greatest interest in the education of his countrymen. " In fact" says Dr. Mouat, late Secretay td the Council of Education " I can look back upon no part of my early career in connection with education which is not associated with him." ( Ram Gopal. ) "The subject of our memoir," says a writer in the Calcutta Review, ( meaning Ram Gopal Ghose ) " indited several elaborate and valuable minutes showing the defects of the principal education- al institutions." When the Bethune Female School was first opened, and non» came forward to risk the social obloquy consequent .upon sending- a native girl to a public school, Ram Gopal was the first man who broke through all trammels of social fear, and got his daughter ad-