Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/224

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196
TWELVE MEN OF BENGAL

hât, and though cut off by land from other parts of the District by a network of rivers, it is on the main steamer route from Calcutta to Eastern Bengal and Assam. It was fortunate for Morrelgunj that it fell into the hands of so just and capable a Zemindar as Maharaja Durga Charan Law.

For some years before his death, failing health prevented the Maharaja from taking his accustomed active part in public affairs. He never, however, lost his keen interest in all the current questions of the day and to the end he was consulted and his opinion sought on a variety of subjects by all classes of the community. A man of few words, he was never hasty in giving his opinion, but once given that opinion seldom proved wrong. His judgment consequently met with universal respect. He had a horror of falsehood or deceit in any shape or form, and in the mercantile world his name was always synonymous with honesty and straightforward dealing. Though the strictness of his principles gave him a somewhat severe mein, those who knew him were quick to realise that under a harsh exterior he had a heart of gold. The Maharaja died at the great age of eighty years in 1902, one of the wealthiest and most respected merchant princes of Bengal.