THE LATE MR. J. D. ANDERSON.
Ito 77IE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."3 SIR,—May I send you a few words on your valued contributor, Mr. James Drummond Anderson, my oldest and truest friend? We were born in Calcutta the same year. He was the son of our H.E.I. Co's M.D. attached to a regiment in Fort William. Ho was sent home rather late, aged about seven. He was educated at Rugby during the days when the Governing Body appointed a complete outsider who knew nothing of the Public School spirit, when the assistant masters were in league against their Head, and got dismissed or resigned. In 1873 Anderson and I both got places in the I.C.S. examination. Ho got the best marks of any for his English essay, on the usual drama subject. He recalled the old "patli-natches" of Calcutta and wrote a very original composition. We were both posted to Bengal. Ho served chiefly in Assam, Districts Silhet and Kachar, and also in Chittagong in Bengal. These were not favourite districts, and he never got away to Darjeeling. Ile knew the Kachari folk-stories and the Chittagong proverbs. With this sort of knowledge you can imagine what a fine District Officer he became. We both retired in 1900. He was appointed reader or teacher in Bengali for Cambridge University, and was attached to Colas.
No contemporary Englishman had a wider knowledge or a more just or discriminating appreciation of Bengali litera- ture. Tiiis year he published an excellent manual of Bengali. During the war he devoted two hours a day to censoring Bengali letters, for which he got .1100 from a conscientious and parsimonious Government! He was a well-known authority on Eastern languages and their grammar. He delighted in French and French literature. He could lecture in French at the Inetitut, and had a host of French friends. At Cambridge his house was a social centre, which, with the help of his wife Mrs. Anderson, who nobly seconded his efforts, became the meeting-place of Indians, students, and Anglo- Indians. The labour that he spent on getting Indians into colleges was enormous. His own big family of six sons and a daughter was the chief care of his life.
"To make a happy fireside clime For weans and wife Is the true Pathos and Sublime Of human life."
his eldest son, Captain Anderson, RE., was killed in the trenches—a terrible grief to his parents. A diffident manner and extraordinary modesty overlaid kis
remarkable abilities. When called to the Litt.D. degreu. he
begged that no reference should be made to the matter in print At heart he was one of the most humorous, the most right thinking, the most affectionate natures conceivable.
"Once more, farewell!
If e'er we meet hereafter, we shall meet In happier climmi, and on a safer shore."
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