On the
contrary, business grew brisker and solidly improved at the approach
of the commemoration, owing to the very considerable sale of parti-
coloured paper, velvet, calico, and similar articles used in the
construction [104] of the pagodas. Governor Freeling, however, was,
it may be presumed, compelled to see danger in an institution which
had had nearly forty years' trial, without a single accident
happening to warrant any sudden interposition of the Government
tending to its suppression. At all events, the only action taken in
1884, in prospect of their usual festival, was to notify the
immigrants by proclamation, and, it is said, also through authorized
agents, that the details of their fete were not to be conducted in
the usual manner; and that their appearance with pagodas in any
public road or any town, without special license from some competent
local authority, would entail the penalty of so many pounds fine, or
imprisonment for so many months with hard labour. The immigrants, to
whom this unexpected change on the part of the authorities was
utterly incomprehensible, both petitioned and sent deputations to the
Governor, offering guarantees for the, if possible, more secure
celebration of the Hosein, and praying His Excellency to cancel the
prohibition as to the use of the roads, inasmuch as it interfered
with the essential part of their religious rite, which was the
"drowning," or casting into [105] the sea, of the pagodas.
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