About this time _The Illustrated London News_ reached India with a picture purporting to be that of the Nânâ Sâhib. I forget the date of the number which contained this picture; but I first saw it in Bithoor some time between the 15th and 25th December 1857. I will now give the history of that picture, and show how Ajoodia Pershâd, commonly known as Jotee Pershâd, the commissariat contractor, came to figure as the Nânâ Sâhib in the pages of _The Illustrated London News_. It is a well-known fact that there is no authentic portrait of the Nânâ in existence; it is even asserted that he was never painted by any artist, and photography had not extended to Upper India before 1857. I believe this is the first time that the history of the picture published as that of the Nânâ Sâhib by _The Illustrated London News_ has been given. I learnt the facts which I am about to relate some years after the Mutiny, under a promise of secrecy so long as my informant, the late John Lang, barrister-at-law and editor and proprietor of _The Mofussilite_, should be alive. As both he and Ajoodia Pershâd have been many years dead, I commit no breach of confidence in now telling the story. The picture purporting to be that of the Nânâ having been published in 1857, it rightly forms a reminiscence of the Mutiny, although much of the following tale occurred several years earlier; but to make the history of the picture complete, the facts which led to it must be noticed.
There are but few Europeans now in India who remember the scandal connected with the trial of Ajoodia Pershâd, the commissariat contractor, for payment for the supplies and carriage of the army throughout the second Sikh war. When it came to a final settlement of his accounts with the Commissariat Department, Ajoodia Pershâd claimed three and a half _crores_ of rupees (equal to three and a half millions sterling), in excess of what the auditor would pass as justly due to him; and the Commissariat Department, backed by the Government of India, not only repudiated the claim, but put Ajoodia Pershâd on his trial for falsification of accounts and attempting to defraud the Government. There being no high courts in those days, nor trial by jury, corrupt or otherwise, for natives in the Upper Provinces, an order of the Governor-General in Council was passed for the trial of Ajoodia Pershâd by special commission, with the judge-advocate-general as prosecutor. The trial was ordered to be held at Meerut, and the commission assembled there, commencing its sittings in the Artillery mess-house during the cold weather of 1851-52. There were no barristers or pleaders in India in those days--at least in the Mofussil, and but few in the presidency towns; but Ajoodia Pershâd, being a very wealthy man, sent an agent to England, and engaged the services of Mr. John Lang, barrister-at-law, to come out and defend him. John Lang left England in May, 1851, and came out round the Cape in one of Green's celebrated liners, the _Nile_, and he reached Meerut about December, when the trial commenced.