Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/260

228 The largest land-owner in the province, owning property in no less than eighteen districts and numbering some six hundred thousand souls among his tenants, Jotindra Mohan first came prominently into public notice during the famine of 1866. In Orissa and Midnapore, where he held extensive Zemindaries, the distress proved more severe than any with which the British Government had yet had to deal. It was one of the greatest catastrophes of the century in Bengal. With no previous experience of famine on so extensive a scale and unware [sic] that the drought of the previous year would have so disastrous an effect upon the grain supply, Government was utterly unprepared to meet the calamity that faced it during the hot weather months of 1866. With no organised measures of famine relief and hampered by lack of the means of speedy communication and transit, starvation had overtaken thousands of the unfortunate people before relief could come. The area affected was some twelve thousand square miles with a population of four million souls, and it is estimated that something like a quarter of this number perished. How loyally the local officers worked to relieve this terrible distress the reports of the Commissioners appointed later to enquire into the cause of the famine prove, while so eager was Government to come to the assistance of the people, once the true facts of the case were known, is shown