HERE AND THERE
Before closing the story of Madras, it will be well to speak, at least
very briefly, of some of the prominent landmarks of the city that we
have not yet described.
Of churches, we should mention St. George's Cathedral. It was opened
in 1816, not as a cathedral but as an ordinary church; for Madras then
was not a diocese by itself, but was a part of the immense diocese of
Calcutta. The new church was regarded as a necessity; for a great many
'garden houses' had sprung up in and about the Mount Road, in the area
that was called the 'Choultry Plain,' and the Directors of the Company
agreed with representations from Madras that it was undesirable that
English residents within the bounds should be able to stay away from
the Church-services on Sunday with the reasonable excuse that the
nearest Anglican church--St. Mary's in the Fort--was too far away from
their houses for them to be expected to attend. So the new church was
built; and some twenty years later, when Dr. Corrie, Archdeacon of
Calcutta, was consecrated first Bishop of Madras, the church became
'the Cathedral Church of St. George.' St. George's Cathedral is a
stately building, with a spire 139 feet high, and it stands in
spacious grounds. The total cost was more than two lakhs of rupees;
but nobody had to be asked to subscribe, for the money was available
from a peculiar source. It was an age in which State lotteries were in
vogue; Madras had followed the fashion with a series of official
lotteries, and a 'Lottery Fund' had been created from the profits, so
that there was always a good supply of cash available for
extraordinary expenses, such as mending the roads or entertaining
distinguished visitors. It was from the Lottery Fund that the cost of
building St. George's was met.
[Illustration: ST. GEORGE'S CATHEDRAL.]
St. Andrew's Church--most commonly known as 'The Kirk'--was planned
while St. George's was being built; and it is remarkable that it was
not projected sooner than it was. Scotchmen in Madras, as in other
parts of India, apart from Scottish soldiers, have been many; and the
names of a number of Madras roads and houses--such as Anderson Road,
Graeme's Road, Davidson Street, Brodie Castle, Leith Castle, Mackay's
Gardens--are reminders of the fact that not a few of the Scots of
Madras have been influential; and at the time when a second Anglican
church was being built in the city it was suggested to the Directors
of the Company in England that the numerous residents who were
members of the Church of Scotland ought to have a church too. The
Directors, who realized no doubt the desirability of being agreeable
to the many Scots in Madras, one of whom at the time was the Governor
himself, Mr. Hugh Elliot, consented to the suggestion, and in 1815
they sent out a notification that a Presbyterian church was to be
built not only at Madras but also in each of the other Presidency
cities at the Company's expense, and that the Company would maintain a
Presbyterian chaplain at each. The Directors laid down no instructions
as to what was to be the maximum cost of each kirk, but it was
unpretentious buildings that they had in mind. At Bombay a large kirk
was built for less than half a lakh of rupees, but for the kirk at
Madras the Madras Government submitted a bill for nearly Rs. 2 1/4
lakhs--some Rs. 10,000 more than the total cost of St. George's
Cathedral, and the Directors were indignant. The Kirk, however, had
been built; and it is one of the handsome churches of Madras.[5] It is
a domed building, with a tall steeple over the Grecian facade; and
some of its critics have said that the combination of dome and steeple
gives the edifice a strangely camel-backed appearance; but, however
that may be, the dome adds beauty to the interior. When the Church was
opened, it was found that the dome evoked disturbing echoes, and a
large additional expense had to be incurred to exorcise the wandering
voices. The steeple reaches a height of 166 1/2 feet, which is 27 1/2
feet higher than that of St. George's.
[Illustration: ST. ANDREW'S (THE "KIRK").]
[Footnote 5: Major de Haviland, of the Madras Engineers, built St.
George's on a plan designed by Major Caldwell, his senior in the
service. Major de Haviland both designed the Kirk and built it, and he
devoted himself to his work and was very proud of his creation, which
was nevertheless much criticized by unfriendly critics.]
The Roman Catholic Cathedral at Mylapore has been described on page
61. A sketch of the handsome building is given on the next page.
The High Court, a red Saracenic structure that spreads itself out over
a large area between Georgetown and the Fort, is a modern building. It
was opened within the memory of elderly lawyers of Madras, some of
whom used themselves to practise in the big building which is now the
Collector's Office, opposite the gate of the Port Trust premises, and
which was for many years the habitation of the Supreme Court at
Madras. The present High Court is a mighty monument to the development
of 'The Law' in Madras. In the early days of Fort St. George the
Company administered its own justice to its own people, and the court
was held in a building in the Fort. Punishments in those far-off
times, judicial or otherwise, were usually severe; and the Records
show that even a civil servant of junior rank who gave trouble was
liable to be awarded some such penalty as to sit for an hour or more
on a sharp-backed 'wooden horse,' with or without weights attached to
the delinquent's feet. In the town that grew up outside the Fort,
justice as between natives of the soil was administered by an Indian
_adikhari_, who represented the lord of the soil. As the Company's
influence and authority increased, various courts of law were
created--and the Records show that there were certainly crimes enough
to justify their creation. A large number of the criminal trials in
the earlier years of Madras were in respect of thefts of children, to
sell them as slaves, especially to Dutch merchants along the coast,
where the victims were not likely to be traced. Slavery was a
recognized condition of life in old Madras, as indeed it was in the
whole of Europe; and in the Council-book of Fort St. George there is
still to be seen an Order, dated September 29, 1687, "that Mr. Fraser
do buy forty young Sound Slaves for the Rt. Hon'ble Company," who were
to be made to work as boatmen in the Company's fleet of surf-boats. It
was in reference to a slave that the first case of trial by jury was
held in Madras, in 1665, and it was a _cause celebre_. The prisoner
was a Mrs. Dawes, who was accused of having murdered a slave girl in
her service. The Governor himself, who, like a doge of Venice, was
both ruler and judge, was on the bench, and the twelve jurymen gave a
unanimous verdict that Mrs. Dawes was 'guilty of the murther, but not
in mannere and forme,' by which they seem to have meant that the
circumstances of the case exonerated her from the capital charge.
Being pressed to give a verdict 'without exception or limitation,'
they brought in a unanimous verdict of 'not guilty,' whereupon the
Governor felt that, although the woman had been guilty of a crime, he
had no help for it but to set her free. He thereupon wrote to the
Directors in England, expressing his disapproval of 'such an
unexpected verdict,' and notifying that in his ignorance of the law
and its formalities he was by no means confident that he had done the
right thing; and the end of it was that the Governor, presumably with
the Directors' approval, created two justices, on whom was thereafter
to fall the responsibility of hearing all such serious cases. Change
upon change! and to-day the Madras High Court, with the various other
courts in different parts of the city, is a very visible symbol of the
serious reality of the administration of justice.
[Illustration: ST. THOME CATHEDRAL.]
The story of the origin of the principal literary and scientific
institutions in Madras is interesting. In the olden times, when there
were no literary or scientific magazines by which an 'exile in the
East' could keep himself in touch with the developments of genius
throughout the world, people in India with literary or scientific
tastes had to be content to gratify their tastes with local
researches, and to depend upon one another for any interchange of
ideas. This meant that old-time literary and scientific societies in
India were naturally more enthusiastic than most such societies in
India are now. Madras indeed has been particularly fortunate in her
time in having had residents who were earnest in cultured pursuits,
and whose work survives, directly or indirectly, at the present day.
For example, it was an old-time Madras Civilian, with a hobby for
astronomy and with a private observatory of his own, that created a
local interest in the science and is thereby to be regarded as the
originator of the Madras Observatory--the first British Observatory in
the East, a famous institution in olden days, which secured for Madras
the honour--which is still hers--of setting the standard of time
throughout the whole of India. The Madras Civilian was Mr. William
Petrie, an extraordinarily versatile genius, who entered the service
as a young man and rose to be a member of the Government, yet managed
to find time for very serious astronomical pursuits in his house at
Nungambaukam. Going home to England on long furlough, Mr. Petrie
allowed the Madras Government to acquire his instruments; and in 1791,
when he came back to Madras, the Madras Observatory was built, with
Mr. Petrie as adviser.
Another enthusiastic scientist in Madras in the same period was Dr.
James Anderson, who, after many years of work in the Company's medical
service, settled down at Madras as 'Physician-General,' on a salary of
L2,500 a year, and devoted himself and a large part of his handsome
salary to botanical pursuits. He acquired in Nungambaukam more than a
hundred acres of land, which included what are now the grounds of the
houses that go by the names of Pycroft's Gardens and Tulloch's
Gardens; and for nearly a quarter of a century, until his death, Dr.
Anderson utilized his leisure in the creation and development of a
useful and ornamental botanical garden. He was most enthusiastic over
his hobby, and he was continually carrying out botanical and
agricultural experiments, of medical or commercial or industrial
value. His grounds were open to the public, and 'Dr. Anderson's
Botanical Gardens' became famous, and were a place of popular resort.
Dr. Anderson died at the age of seventy-two; and in St. George's
Cathedral his memory is graced with a fine statue that was carved by
the most eminent sculptor, Sir Francis Chantrey, and for which his
medical brethren in the Madras Service subscribed. How many years
after his death his gardens continued to exist it might be difficult
to say, but they must have suffered badly from the want of the ardent
botanist's enthusiastic care. But the botanic spirit that Dr. Anderson
had started remained alive in Madras; for in 1835, when, to the regret
of many, his gardens had been split up into building-sites for two
private residences, there was still a sufficient number of botanically
inclined people in the city to found the Agri-Horticultural Society of
Madras, a still-energetic body whose beautiful gardens at Teynampet
deserve to be more generally appreciated by the public than they are.
The Madras Literary Society was founded a good many years ago. Its
work now is that of a circulating library; but in earlier times it was
especially a 'literary society,' and its meetings, at which lectures
were delivered or papers were read and discussed, were crowded
gatherings of the leading Europeans in the city. The original Literary
Society included scientific researches within its scope, and
scientific members used to discourse learnedly on scientific subjects
of topical interest, such as 'The Land-Crabs of Madras,' or
'Prehistoric Tombs in the Salem District,' or 'Gold in the Wynaad of
Malabar.' The name of the Society remains, but the literary and
scientific meetings are no more. The last lecture, if memory fails
not, was delivered in the nineties, and the audience was not large
enough or enthusiastic enough to denote that lectures were any longer
in demand. As a 'Literary Society and Auxiliary of the Royal Asiatic
Society,' the institution has outlived its requirement; but it has a
valuable store of more than 50,000 books, new and old, on all
subjects, and it is continually adding to the number; and, as a
circulating library of a high standard, it fulfils an excellent
literary purpose.
The Madras Museum is a magnificent institution. It is to the Madras
Literary Society that it owes its being; and the Literary Society did
Madras splendid service in the initiation thereof. This was in 1851,
when the Literary Society presented its fine collection of geological
specimens to the Madras Government as the nucleus of the rich and
varied store of treasures that the Madras Museum now displays. The
Government lodged the geological specimens in the 'Collector's
Cutcherry'--a house which forms a part--the oldest part--of the Museum
buildings of to-day. Before the Government acquired the house in 1830
for a Cutcherry, the house had been private property, and, under the
name of the 'Pantheon,' it had been for many years the predecessor of
the Old College as the 'Assembly Rooms', wherein Madras Society had
its balls, its plays, and its big dinners. The name of the old
building still survives in the Pantheon Road, in which the Museum is
situated.
A high circular building on the Marina always attracts a stranger's
attention. It has a curious and interesting history. It is commonly
called 'The Ice-House,' and the name suggests its original purpose. A
number of years ago, when ice-factories had not been started and when
in Madras the luxury of the 'cool drink' was unknown, somebody
conceived the idea of importing ship-loads of blocks of ice from
America. The idea was developed, and about the year 1840 a commercial
scheme took shape. A large circular building was erected close to the
sea-beach as a reservoir for the imported ice, which sailing-ships
brought in huge blocks from the western world; and for a number of
years the scheme was a commercial success. The ice was sold at four
annas a pound, and many people in Madras remember the time when it was
the only ice that was to be had, and large quantities of it were sold.
With the eventual institution of ice-factories, which could supply ice
at a much cheaper rate, the enterprise came to an end, and for a
considerable time the ice-reservoir was out of use. Then somebody
bought it, and put windows into the walls, and turned it into a
residence; and meanwhile, as a result of the construction of the
harbour, the sea receded a long way down the Ice-house shore. As a
residence, however, a house of so strange a shape was not in request;
and eventually some benevolent Hindus turned it into a free hostel for
any preacher or religious teacher of repute, whatever his creed, who
might be temporarily staying in Madras, especially if he felt that he
had a message to deliver to the city. But the reputable prophets who
availed themselves of the proffered hospitality were few; and the
'Ice-house' had a deserted look. A few years ago the Madras Government
acquired it for the excellent purpose of a 'Brahman Widows' Home' for
Brahman girl-widows at school. This is the purpose that it now
fulfils. From Ice-house to child-widows' home! It is a great
transformation--from a house whose chambers were stored with hard
blocks of cold ice to a house whose chambers are aglow with the warmth
of young life! There is room to hope that in course of time the
Child-widows' Home will have outlived its purpose--in the time when
gentler ideals will prevail, and the sorrows of child-widows will have
ceased, and the institution will no longer be a need.