CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 9 



more of the ordinary kind ; but a new emergency soon arose 

 to call out his powers. Burdwan had long enjoyed a 

 peculiarly good reputation for health ; so much so indeed 

 as to be a frequent holiday centre for Calcutta people, who 

 described it as a veritable sanatorium 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. 

 TBuTafter 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 



