in the nature of a fine.  I got very little satisfaction or comfort from my interview with the head of the firm, a Mr. William Anderson whose soubriquet was Gorgeous Bill, who told me that he could do nothing personally, that the matter would have to be submitted to the directors at their next weekly meeting, and that the probabilities were that they would enforce the rule and cancel the policy.  The following few days were a veritable nightmare to me, as I fully expected they would act as he intimated they would and as they were fully entitled to do.  At last the fatal day arrived, and I waited in fear and trembling outside the Board room, whilst the directors deliberated over the affair.  To my intense joy and relief they announced their decision which was to the effect that they had taken into consideration all the facts of the matter and they thought a fine would meet the exigencies of the case, but I must not do it again.  As far as I remember the amount was Rs. 150, but the point of the story has yet to be told.  Whilst all this was happening the man was lying dead at home having been accidentally killed by a bale of cotton falling upon him when passing along some cotton warehouses in one of the streets in Liverpool.

[Illustration:  Old view of Bank of Bengal Johnston & Hoffmann]

[Illustration:  Photo. by Bourne & Shepherd Present view of Bank of Bengal]

PART II.

Topographical.

Of all the vast and dramatic changes that have taken place in Calcutta since I first saw it, I think the most striking and outstanding are to be seen in Clive Street and its environs.  Looking back and contrasting the past with the present, it all seems so startling and wonderful as to suggest the idea that some genii or magician had descended upon the city and with a touch of his magic wand converted a very ordinary looking street, containing many mean, dilapidated looking dwellings, into a veritable avenue of palaces, and for ever sweeping away blots and eyesores which had existed almost from time immemorial.  This transformation more or less applies to Clive Row, the whole of the south side of Clive Ghaut Street stretching round the corner into the south of the Strand, part of the northern portion, Royal Exchange Place, Fairlie Place, the west and south side of Dalhousie Square, and a goodly portion to the east.

WRITERS’ BUILDINGS

Occupying as it does the whole of the north side of Dalhousie Square has been changed and altered out of all knowledge and recognition.  It was formerly, before Government took it over, a plain white stuccoed building utterly devoid of any pretensions to architectural beauty, and depending mainly for any chance claim to recognition on its immense length.  Its blank, straight up and down appearance was barely relieved by several white pillars standing out rather prominently