In the year 1756, the nabob, or tributary king of the province of Bengal died, and was succeeded by a very young man, who bore the outlandish looking title of Surajah Dowlah. This young barbarian cast a covetous eye on the neighboring British factory, and one summer day attacked the place suddenly with a large army. The small party of English who were in the factory, despairing of their ability to effect any successful defense, tried to make their escape to some ships which were lying in the river. Several of the fugitives reached the vessels in safety. But in the confusion of the flight, one hundred and forty-six individuals fell into the hands of the victorious nabob. These, his officers thrust for the night into a small cell, which was used as the prison of the fortress, and was known under the dismal name of the Black Hole of Calcutta. This cell had but two small square holes for windows, and was only eighteen feet long and fourteen feet wide, so that the last person of the one hundred and forty-six had to be crushed in upon the rest with violence, as the door was closed and locked. The anguish of the crowded captives soon became so great, in this vile hole, that the neighborhood resounded with the noise of their struggles and cries. As the night wore on, these sounds, however, gradually sunk into silence. When the morning came, and the door of the prison was opened, the reason of this silence became sadly apparent. In the place of the one hundred and forty-six prisoners who were shut up on the previous day, they took out one hundred and twenty-three corpses, and, twenty-three miserable beings, who looked more like ghastly spectres than men, and who could hardly be said to be alive. This occurrence furnished one remarkable instance of the deadly power of the poison vapors which are poured out from the inside of living beings. Now I will tell you about another case of a similar kind. A few years ago, a vessel started from Cork in Ireland, to take a large number of emigrants to a ship just about to sail from Liverpool. A violent storm sprung up in the night, as the vessel was crossing the Irish Channel, and the captain, fearing that the alarmed passengers would interfere with the sailors, and render it difficult to work the ship, sent them all below into the hold, and covered them closely down with the hatches. The imprisoned passengers soon found that they were suffocating, and called and knocked loudly for help, but their cries either were unheard or disregarded. In the morning the hatches were removed, and to the horror of the captain and his crew, the hold was found half full of dead bodies and dying people, instead of containing living men and women. Such are the fearful consequences which follow, when human beings are forced to breathe the same air over and over again.