Wednesday's Times contains an account of a speech by Mr.
Pal, the Indian purveyor of sedition upon whose address at Madras we recently commented, reported in his own paper, the Bands Mataram, and delivered late last month in the house of a Calcutta gentleman, " ostensibly in reference to the Sakti poojah,—a ritual which includes blood-offerings and other repulsive features." "The goddess Kali, he said, was the emblem of Sakti (i.e., of the feminine principle symbolising in this case destructive energy), and the image gave a vivid idea of the destruction and havoc inevitably to follow on the exercise of Sakti. The Sakti was inherent in all, but in a sleeping state while not in action, and the moment it was stirred up it manifested itself in overwhelming force. The Sakti in the Bengalis and the Indian nation generally was now in a sleeping state, and as soon as the Indians knew the power of their will the handful of foreigners dominating over them would no longer have the power of oppressing them."
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