There is still much lawlessness in both Bengals.[9] The continued prevalence of political dacoities, and especially the difficulty experienced in securing legal evidence against them, are distinctly unfavourable symptoms.

There are many peaceful citizens who will give private information as to the outrages committed by these bands, consisting mainly of youths of respectable connexions, but that so few have the courage to face terrorism by going into the witness-box shows that the secret societies which inspire such terror have not yet been broken up.
The extent to which disaffection is rampant in the native Bar also hampers the administration of justice, for whilst there is an eager competition for earning political notoriety by an eloquent defence of political prisoners, it is sometimes difficult to find pleaders who will undertake to conduct prosecutions.

On the other hand, it is all to the good that many of those who were ready to coquet with sedition in its earlier stages or who had not the moral courage to speak out against it seem now to be taking heart, and in this respect the reforms embodied in the Indian Councils Act have usefully supplemented the sobering effect of repressive legislation.

For one of the stock arguments of "advanced" politicians has been the failure of the "moderates" to obtain any recognition from Government, and the enlargement of the Legislative Councils took the sting out of that taunt.

Independently, however, of the reforms, the extreme violence of language and of methods which had come into vogue was bound to produce some reaction.