ABSTRACT
The point of the following letter to the editor of The Englishman, the Tory-oriented newspaper in India during this time, was that in some respect its publication triggered the British officials in India to actually recognise that a famine was going on. One has to wonder what would have happened if the letter, which so humiliated the government, had not been published. Having received a copy of this article from a private venue, on 10 May 1866, A. P. Howell, Under Secretary to the Government of India, Home Department to the Secretary to the Government of Bengal, wrote to inform Lieutenant Governor Cecil Beadon of the existence of this letter referring to ‘The Starving Poor of Orissa’. Based on the contents of the letter to the editor, Howell directed Beadon to ‘inquire whether the distress in that province was as severe as represented therein, and if so, what steps his Honor has taken, or would suggest for its relief’. 45
