Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/37

 their efforts to evangelise the people Siris Chandra started a free English School.

But such a valuable life had a very lamentable end. We here quote the words of the writer of “Khitis Chandra and his Family.”

Raja Siris Chandra was till the thirty-fifth year of his age devoted to the service of his country, and to his own good. After this he came in contact with some plausible wealthy men of Calcutta, whose company effected a revolution in his principles and conduct. After this he ceased to attend to his own affairs, and shut his ears against the advice and warning of friends. He became intemperate in every way, and spent days and nights in Bacchanalian revelries. Two years of incessant debauchery told on his body and mind; and at last, on the 21st of the month of Augraham, 1857, he left this world at the age of thirty-eight.

His successor. Satis Chandra, ascended the gadi at the age of twenty. Few noteworthy events happened in his time. He neglected his responsibilities, and spent much of his time abroad with bad companions. He was careless alike of his income and his expenditure. He died on the 25th of October 1870 at Masuri, of a disease brought on by too much drinking.

Satis Chandra was a great admirer of English customs. He ate publicly with his European guests. On his death, Mr Lobb, the then Principal of the Krishnagar College, praised him in the following terms: — “The Maharaja was the link of sympathy between the Europeans and the natives, and in his death that link has been broken, and there is no hope for another to take his place.”

Satis’s widow adopted a son, and named him Khitis Chandra. He is the present Raja of Nadia, and is