Affairs in the City may now be regarded as having resumed their normal
course, and the chance of further disorder seems for the present to have
been obviated. One of the most curious features of the disturbances was the
difference of feeling exhibited by the two classes of mill-operatives,
namely the Ghatis and the Malwanis. Of the whole mill-population one would
have assumed that the Kunbis from the Deccan, where Tilak is stated to have
so great a following, would have shown a greater disposition to riot in
consequence of his arrest and conviction than the men from Ratnagiri. And
yet so far as I could judge the Ghatis were far less interested in the
trial and were much less disposed to express their resentment than the
latter class, which comprises one or two extremely hot-headed and
uncompromising individuals. The Ghatis of Sewri indeed at the very height
of the riots, informed an Englishman with whom they are familiar, that they
would sooner die for him than do him any harm, and their words carried home
the conviction that they felt no personal sorrow at Tilak's well-deserved
fate and that they would be ready in an emergency, as they have often been
in past history, to stand staunchly by the side of any individual whom they
know and who has been kind to them. The attitude of the Ratnagiri hands
must in my opinion have been engendered by continuous and careful tuition;
and this was particularly the case in the Currey Road and Delisle Road
areas where agents, belonging to their own native district, had been
suborned by the seditionary party to stir up trouble.

No less remarkable was the quaint juxtaposition during the height of the
riots of seething disorder and the quiet prosecution of their daily
avocations by the bulk of the people. An officer of one of the regiments
quartered on the City during the trial in the High Court gave expression to
this fact in the following words:--"Warfare I understand; but this sort of