Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/533

486 to visit personally the villages under him and provide for the relief of the poor villagers, hut that Babu Issan Chandra Mitra, Deputy Magistrate of the Jehanabad Subdivision of the Hugh district did not attend to it seriously. It may not be out of place to mention here that Birsingha and its neighbouring villages were at that time under the Hugh district, but were subsequently transferred under Midnapur in the time of Sir George Campbell.

Vidyasagar then hurried to the scene of occurrence, and was glad to find that his kind mother had already begun feeding the hungry people. She cooked the food with her own hands, and fed on an average one hundred persons daily. As was the son, so was the mother! But Vidyasagar was not content with this. He opened feeding houses at his own cost for Birsingha and the surrounding villages. The number of hungry people increased every day; from one hundred it finally rose to one thousand. As the number increased daily, Vidyasagar raised his scale of expenditure. On this occasaion he wrote to his third brother, Sambhu Chandra, who had been charged with the management of the feeding houses, not to show stint of expenses on this account, however large the amount might be.

He had returned to Calcutta after completing all arrangements, but visited Birsingha often. Provisions were at first made for supplying the