CALCUTTA.
Calcutta, Past and Present. By Kathleen Blechynden. ( W. Thacker and Co. 7s. net.)—Miss Blechynd en's story of Calcutta begins with a romance,—how its founder, Job Charnock, rescued a young Indian widow from sati and made her his wife. Tradition says that husband and wife were buried iu the same grave. The foundation of the town dates from 1690. The choice of a site seems injudicious, but probably it was no choice at all. After sixty-odd somewhat eventful years came the tragedy of the Black Hole—a not very creditable story is told of how the monument recording the event was allowed to perish—soon followed by the victorious expedition of Clive and Watson. This was the "last battle of Calcutta," and the story afterwards becomes chiefly one of social life ; and a very strange life it was. Three bottles of wine for a gentleman and one for a lady were a not unusual allowance. It is scarcely to be wondered at that with this amount of liquor, and habits which seemed deliberately to defy the climate, the average of life was so short. When Lord Clive concluded his Treaty with Suraja-ud-Dowlah (the Treaty which virtually gave us Bengal) there were great festivities, the wine-bill for three banquets coming to half as much again as the other expenses. (The fireworks, it may be observed, cost more than twice as much as the wine.) "Expense of feeding wild beasts and making a place for them to fight in amounted to the modest sum of .238 "; the fireworks cost £1,218, but were some- what spoiled by the natives stealing the oil. There are sketches of interesting personalities and incidents, among them the much- married Mrs. Johnson. Her first spell of wedded life lasted for four years; the second, beginning nine months later, for ten days, her husband dying of smallpox ; the third marriage was with William Watts, Senior Member of Council. This was in 1749. In 1774 she took a fourth husband, this time a chaplain. "Last of all, the woman died also" at the age of eighty-seven. No description boats Carlyle's little picture of Kitty Kirkpatrick "Kitty was charming in her beautiful Begum sort had one of the prettiest smiles, a visible sense of humour, the slight, merry curl of her upper lip (right side of it only), the carriage of her head on such occasions, the quaint little things she said in that kind, and her low-toned hearty laugh were noticeable low-voiced, languidly harmonious, loved perfumes, etc., a half Begum in short, an interesting specimen of the semi-oriental Englishwoman."
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