was written of Abdul Latif's predecessor "was made miserable by the cheeky and fearless country attorneys and landlord's agents and other habitual litigants, all in league with the ministerial staff who continually kept him in hot water with them, and imposed on him, by their complaints to higher authority, the necessity of constantly answering changes and explaining his conduct." The task that thus fell to the lot of Abdul Latif during the five years that he remained at Jehanabad was a heavy one and needed all the tact at his command. How successfully he carried out that task was acknowledged on all sides. The subdivision as he left it was a very different place from the subdivision as he found it. When the time came for him to relinquish his post on transfer elsewhere Lord Ulick Browne, the Magistrate of Hooghly, wrote officially to thank him for his services, saying that he had 'discharged very satisfactorily the duties of a most difficult subdivision such as Jehanabad, where his loss is to be deeply regretted.'
Returning to Alipore in June 1857 Abdul Latif was able to resume his public and social activities which he had been forced very largely to abandon during his absence from Calcutta at Jehanabad. He was soon again busily engaged in promoting every scheme for the advancement of the Muhammadan community, welcomed everywhere as a capable and energetic ally. In 1860 he was made a member
