CALCUTTA: PAST AND PRESENT
Charity School, to the distribution of rice on Surman's (Kidderpore) Bridge to the starving poor in years of famine. To the hospitality and generosity of Anglo-Indian society there is no lack of testimony. Lord Valentia, who was in Calcutta in 1803, and who subsequently published an account of his travels in the East, wrote:—
"I can truly affirm that my Eastern countrymen are hospitable in the highest degree, and that their generosity is unbounded. The hearts of the British in this country seem expanded with affluence, they do everything on a princely scale."
Again we read, in Forbes's "Oriental Memoirs":—
"The character of the English in India is an honour to their country. In private life they are generous, kind, and hospitable; as husbands, fathers, masters, they cannot easily be excelled; whilst friendship, illustrated in its more general sense by unostentatious acts of humanity and benevolence, shines in India with conspicuous lustre. How often have the sons and daughters of misfortune experienced the blessed effects of Oriental benevolence! How often have the ruined merchant, the disconsolate widow, and the helpless orphan been relieved by the delicate and silent
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