Nor was it to stop at dacoities. A regular semi-military organization was introduced, and bands of young men used to go out into the country to carry out mimic manoeuvres. It is of no slight significance that photographs have been discovered of groups of these young men--some of whom were subsequently convicted for serious offences--with Tilak himself in their midst. They were in constant communication with Poona, and when the Poona extremists began to specialize on bombs they were amongst the neophytes of the new cult. A conspiracy was hatched of which the admitted purpose was to murder Colonel Ferris, the Political Agent, at the wedding of the Maharajah's daughter on March 21, 1908, but, if it had been carried out successfully, the Maharajah himself and many of his other guests would almost inevitably have been killed at the same time. For, as was disclosed in the subsequent trial, a bomb was prepared and despatched from Poona which was to have been hurled into the wedding _pandal_ or enclosure railed off in the courtyard of the Palace for the Maharajah and his family and the principal guests, including Colonel Ferris. Fortunately the bomb, which was subsequently discovered, did not reach Kolhapur in time. The conspirators had to fall back upon less potent weapons. Thanks to the Arms Act, which is one of the favourite grievances of Indian Nationalism, they had great difficulty in obtaining arms, but they secured a few, and on April 16, 1908, when Colonel Ferris, who was retiring, left Kolhapur, some of the conspirators followed him into the train, and, alighting at one of the stations, attempted to shoot him, but, again fortunately, their cartridges missed fire. A few weeks later placards giving formulae for the making of bombs were actually posted up on the doors of schools and other buildings, and this was followed by a theft of dangerous chemicals from a Kolhapur private school. Finally ten youths, nine of whom were Brahmans, were committed for trial on these offences before a special Sessions Judge, lent by Government, and eight of them were convicted.
Quite as much as these convictions the downfall of Tilak helped to quell the forces of unrest in the State of Kolhapur as well as in the rest of the Deccan. For in Kolhapur, as in Poona, it was the Brahman Press controlled by Tilak that familiarized the rising generation with the idea of political murder. In the year which preceded the Kolhapur conspiracy, and just after the first dastardly bomb outrage at Muzafferpur to which Mrs. and Miss Kennedy fell victims, an article appeared in the _Vishvavritta_, a Kolhapur monthly magazine, for which its editor, Mr. Bijapurkar, a Brahman, who until 1905 had been Professor of Sanscrit at the Rajaram College, was subsequently prosecuted and convicted. The article, which was significantly headed "The potency of Vedic prayers," recalled various cases in which the Vedas lay down the duty of retaliation upon "alien" oppressors. "To kill such people involves no sin, and when Kshatriyas and Vaidhyas do not come forward to kill them, Brahmans should take up arms and protect religion. When one is face to face with such people they should be slaughtered without hesitation. Not the slightest blame attaches to the slayer." Moreover, lest these exhortations should be construed merely as a philosophic treatise on Vedic teaching, the writer was careful to add that "these doctrines are not to be kept in books, but must be taught even to babes and sucklings."