Page:Vidyasagar, the Great Indian Educationist and Philanthropist.djvu/118

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as they were busied with the suppression of the Sepoy Mutiny. The subject was revived early in 1866 when things had resumed their normal course. Twenty-one thousand persons under the leadership of Maharaja Satish Chandra Roy Bahadur of Nadia, Raja Satya Saran Ghosal of Bhukailas, Raja Pratap Chandra Singha of Kandi and other nobles, memorialised the Government of Bengal. Two months later a deputation of the reforming party waited on Sir C. Beadon, the Lieutenant-Governor, who promised his best support. The Imperial Government, however, suggested that some further expression of public opinion was desirable before having recourse to legislation and that a more exhaustive inquiry should be prosecuted. Sir C. Beadon appointed a committee to mature a scheme which would stamp out the evil without, on the one hand, affecting the general liberty possessed by all Hindus of taking more than one wife, or on the other, giving express sanction to that liberty