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502 BENEDICT VADAKKEKARA the House of Mussoorie look like flogging a dead horse; with this decision the question of founding the Order in India was, to all intents, shelved indefinitely. The :Mission Council's dusty answer laid bare unwittingly a certain unwished situation that then prevailed in the Indian :Missions of the Capuchins. As the movement for national autonomy for India was then gaining momentum, the Church's nearly all-European clerical cadre in the north of the country, was beginning to stick out like a sore thumb; there were already unmistakable calls for a change 4 • 1. Striking root nativefy Despite the undiplomatic disavowal from Agra, Mgr Poli flatly refused to give in and pursued the idea single-handedly. He had the unstinting support of the Order's general superiors and the authorities of the Propaganda. His argument was that if the Friary of Mussoorie failed the test, another house had to be found out in its stead. He proposed a former convent in Jeolikote within his Diocese as a house that could be handy either for the Novitiate or the Study. But soon this plan fell stillborn because in the meantime the fqrmer occupants of the house, a community of sisters, staked their claim to it; they asserted that they had already repaid the Rs 4,500 that the Diocese had in– vested in the house and that it belonged to them as of right'. Since it was like a presumption of law for the missionaries that a Novitiate or a Study could effectively function in India only if housed in spacious buildings in the hills, the Capuchin authorities did not have :rpuch from which to pick and choose. The :Missions did not own very many roomy buildings in the hill stations. The possibility of opening the houses of formation in the plains did not even cross their minds because of the excessive summer heat there. This general 4 APCapTusc, Missione Indostan, Adunanze, summing up the plus points of having native friars also in their ranks, the Mission Council of Agra had observed: " ... la loro presenza fra di noi servirebbe anche a chiudere la bocca di alcuni ipercritici (ben pochi pero) che non vedono volentieri tutti forestieri fra i sacerdoti addetti alla loro cura spirituale". The Statistica genera/is missionum OFM Cap of 1921 is revealing on many counts: the Missions of Agra, Ajmer, Alla– habad, Lahore and Simla together had 139 priests: 129 Capuchins and 10 diocesans. All of them excepting 1 were Europeans. See the annexed chart interleaved between pp. 110-111 in Analecta Ordini.s Minorum Capuccinorum 38 (1922). 5 APCapBologna, Classe III, Serie 8 B-7, N.1 d., Mgr Poli to Provincial (Fr Gerard of Bevilacqua) of Bologna, Dilkusha 30 August 1916: refers to the "proprieta del Convento abbandonato dalle Suore dell'Istituto della Beata Vergine".