_The Nationalist Press._ They started a number of papers in Bengalee and also in English, in which they gave their ideas to the people. The _Sandhya_ and the _Bande Mátaran_, as two of the new papers were called, became their classrooms. In a few months the face and the spirit of Bengal was changed. The press, the pulpit, the platform, the writers of prose and poetry, composers of music and playwrights, all were filled with the spirit of nationalism. Bande Mataram (Hail Motherland) was the cry of the day. It was chanted in schools, in colleges, in streets, in houses, in public squares, almost everywhere. Even the government offices and the compounds of the private residences of European officials resounded with it.
_Sabhas_ and _Samitis_ and _Akharas_[75] leaped into existence by hundreds, where the Bengalee young men began to take lessons in fencing and other games. This was their reply to those who taunted them as cowards; for the famous, or rather infamous, remarks of Macaulay about Bengalees were often hurled at their heads by the Anglo-Indians, or new language was used to express the same thoughts.
The boycott had created an unheard of situation in some of the districts in Eastern Bengal. In one district--Barisal--the Superintendent of Police and the Collector had both failed to be able to buy a piece of Manchester shirting for one of their friends, as no trader would sell it except by permission of the gentleman who was the leader of the boycotters. This leader happened to be a man who had made his influence by his character and by service. He was, so to say, the uncrowned king of his district. That was a crusher to the bureaucracy. No foreign bureaucracy could tolerate it. Sir William Bamfylde Fuller, on whom had fallen the first Lieutenant Governorship of Eastern Bengal, was bewildered by the strength of the movement and the new character which the Bengalees were developing. The people refused to show him the customary honours. Even the presence of the Lieutenant Governor in the town did not prevent the people from giving ovations to anti-partition propagandists and making anti-partition demonstrations. At one place it is said that even the railway porters refused to touch his baggage, which had to be carried by police constables. This was more than he could bear.