THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY 



APRIL, 1914 

 FBESH AIE 



By FREDERIC S. LEE 



DALTON PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



ON" one of the hottest of the hot nights of British India, a little more 

 than one hundred and fifty years ago, Siraj-Uddaula, a youthful 

 merciless ruler of Bengal, caused to be confined within a small cell in 

 Fort William, one hundred and forty-six Englishmen whom he had that 

 day captured in a siege of the city of Calcutta. The room was large 

 enough to house comfortably but two persons. Its heavy door was 

 bolted ; its walls were pierced by two windows barred with iron, through 

 which little air could enter. The night slowly passed away, and with 

 the advent of the morning death had come to all but a score of the luck- 

 less company. A survivor has left an account of horrible happenings 

 within the dungeon, of terrible stragglings of a steaming mass of sen- 

 tient human bodies for the insufficient air. Within a few minutes after 

 entrance every man was bathed in a wet perspiration and was searching 

 for ways to escape from the stifling heat. Clothing was soon stripped 

 off. Breathing became difficult. There were vain onslaughts on the 

 windows; there were vain efforts to force the door. Thirst grew intol- 

 erable, and there were ravings for the water which the guards passed 

 in between the bars, not from feelings of mercy, but only to witness in 

 ghoulish glee the added struggles for impossible relief. Ungovernable 

 confusion and turmoil and riot soon reigned. Men became delirious. 

 If any found sufficient room to fall to the floor, it was only to fall to 

 their death, for they were trampled upon, crushed and buried beneath 

 the fiercely desperate wave of frenzied humanity above. The strongest 

 sought death — some by praying for the hastening of the end; some by 

 heaping insults upon the guards to try to induce them to shoot. But all 

 efforts for relief were in vain, until at last bodily and mental agony was 

 followed by stupor. This tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta will 

 vol. lxxxiv. — 22. 



