Word: calcuttas
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IVAN SASSOON Calcutta...
...BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA by Noel Barber. 254 pages. Houghton Mifflin...
...Black Hole of Calcutta...
...horrors began early in June 1756, when the Nawab of Bengal, taking umbrage at the swaggering economic imperialism of the British, marched on Fort William, the East India Company's stronghold in the brawling boom town of Calcutta. There were 50,000 regulars in the Nawab's army, and in the fort only 515 Europeans able to bear arms -such arms as were available. Thanks to Governor Roger Drake, a 34-year-old ineffectual, fifty cannon were rusted useless, and almost all the powder was too damp to burn...
...Oven. The scene was now set for the last ghastly act of the Calcutta tragedy. Spoiling to avenge their losses, Indian officers persuaded the Nawab to confine his prisoners in the Black Hole, a stone brig precisely 18 ft. long and 14 ft. 10 in. wide, ventilated by two small barred embrasures and designed to accommodate three or four disciplinary cases at a time. Normally, the cell was stinking hot, but when 145 men and one woman were pounded into it by rifle butts, the air became noxious with excremental exhalations, and the temperature rose so rapidly that within...