Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the notorious Indian agitator, died at
Bombay last week at the age of sixty-four. He had spent his life in fomenting disaffection and, as a high-caste Brahman, he did not scruple to excite Hindu fanaticism against both Christians and Moslems. He tried to appeal to the 3Sahrattas by glorifying Sliivaji, who led the Mahratta revolt against the Moguls in the seventeenth century. In 1897 Mr. Tilak's journals denounced Mr. Rand, the Plague Commissioner at Poona, and the murder of that able official followed. Mr. Tilak was sent to gaol for sedition. Ten years later he repeated the offence by commending the miscreants who murdered two Englishwomen at 3luzaffarpur, mistaking their carriage for that of the district magistrate. After serving six years' imprisonment, he wasreleased in 1914. Since then he had done his utmost to hamper the Government and to promote discord. He was the real founder of the violent party among the Indian Nationalists. Last year his career was fully exposed in the High Court, in an action for defamation which he brought against Sir Valentine Chirol and which he lost. The harm that this vain and ambitious man did to his own countrymen was very serious.
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