Page:The Life and Work of Sir Jagadis C. Bose.djvu/23

9 more of the ordinary kind; but a new emergency soon arose to call out his powers. Burdwan had long enjoyed a pectiliarly good reputation for health; so much so indeed as to be a frequent hohday centre for Calcutta people, who described it as a veritable sanatoritium on their return. Malaria had been almost unknown; but suddenly in 1870 there was an outbreak, which is still remembered as among the severest in the recent tragic records of Bengal. Thousands perished, leaving a multitude of orphans. The Assistant-Commissioner, after energetic work during the epidemic, took their case actively in hand—not only giving, collecting, and administering relief, but establishing industries, whereby the boys might be trained to self-supporting usefulness. No building was available, so he gave up a great part of his own large house and compound; and there he opened workshops in carpentry, in metal turning, in general metal-work, and even a foundry. From this there survives a big and noble brass vessel still in daily use in the Bose household in Calcutta—an heirloom which will long survive to show the quality of the foundry's products. Here too the little Jagadis begged from his mother some old brass vessels, and persuaded the foundryman to cast them into quite a good-sized brass cannon, which was fired off in season and out of season accordingly, and is still looked back to with an affection even exceeding that for the scientific toys of his later life, more elaborate but less noisy and formidable.

In 1875 Mr. Bose became Executive Officer in charge of the Cutwa Sub-division, and here he came to the severest emergency of his career—the terrible famine of 1880. Though now past his prime, he faced this disaster with fuller energy than ever, organising relief throughout his district. But after the famine was ended, the nervous wear and tear, as well as the physical strain of such work, told heavily on him. With heroic asceticism, he could not bear to eat well while the people starved; and so went out day by day to the starving villagers, with long rides out and home, and