ABSTRACT
COUNCIL REFORM T he marked success which had attended the session of the first Congress in Bombay did not die away as soon as it was over. The number of delegates who attended the second session in Calcutta rose to 412 , and when the Congress was transferred to Madras, in the year 1887, its numbers reached over six hundred. It has been reckoned that during the first thirteen years of its existence more than ten thousand delegates had travelled at their own expense and at great inconvenience not seldom for thousands of miles in order to be present. This was undertaken often at the risk of the local or provincial officials’ disapproval; for the Congress session soon ceased to be patronized by those in authority and fell under suspicion as “ disloyal.”
