Appendix to Appendix J. to Second Report of Committee upon the Fever Hospital and Municipal Improvements : containing correspondence respecting Tolley's Nullah, and suggestions for improving its navigation, etc.

  • Bengal (India). Committee upon the Fever Hospital and Municipal Improvements.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Appendix to Appendix J. to Second Report of Committee upon the Fever Hospital and Municipal Improvements : containing correspondence respecting Tolley's Nullah, and suggestions for improving its navigation, etc. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    In regard to what the merchants state on the score of paying double duty when obliged to disembark their goods from large Boats and to transport them on smaller Boats through the Nullah, the case is briefly this: the small Boats on entering the Nullah pay the customary duty levied on empty Boats, and the proprietor of the large Boat is held responsi- ble for the Toll according to the established rate on the burthen of his Boat—no further Toll is levied on the small Boats when loaded with the Merchant’s goods. It might be left optional with the Merchants either to pay on the burthen of their large Boats, which cannot pass through the Nullah, or pay on the burthen of the smaller Boats on which they may import their cargoes. (Signed) T. GRAHAM. No. 51. To GEORGE DOWDESWELL, ESQ , Secretary to Government, Revenue Department. Sir, In obedience to the Orders of Government in the month of February last, I carefully examined every part of the Canal commonly called Tolley’s Nullah, for the express purpose of verifying the Survey and Sections taken by Lieutenant Colonel Colebrooke and Captain Blunt, which appear to have been done with great accuracy, and form a proper ground whereon to make an estimate of the expence of rendering it navigable. In March I was ordered to proceed on Service to the Field, and since my return, the floods in the Nullah have, until this time, prevented my completing the necessary remarks. It is proper for the information of Government to observe, that the late Major Tolley and his Assigns, never consulted the interest of the public, or even their own, in the management of this business, though it was to them a source of opulence. It is excavated upon so very contracted a scale as to be in every respect inadequate to the purposes for which it was made. A very considerable part of the Craft engaged in the Eastern Trade, are at all times, but particularly during the dry North-wester season compelled to go round by Chingree and Channel Creeks, into the Hoogly, not to avoid the duties, but prefering the long and dangerous navigation, to the certain and heavy loss constantly sustained by detention in the Nullah, the great chance of destruction, or at least of damage to their Boats and property, by forcing their way through it, and to the risk of missing their markets, which of course must considerably reduce the collections. Some idea may be formed of the great difficulty of passing from Calcutta to the deep waters of the Sunderbunds, from the circumstance of my being in a small Budgerow four days getting through the Nullah, although I was assisted by numbers of the Collector’s peons, and all the Chokeydars stationed on its Banks, who were directed to attend me, and was favoured by the highest spring-tides of the full-moon in February when they rise nearly as much as at any season of the year. The Canal was so crowded with Boats, whose crews striving and fighting to get on during the short period of the springs, which alone afforded sufficient water, obstructed each other and defeated their own purpose. Five Boats that in different parts of the Cut had grounded and burst, either from the weight of their lading, or from being destroyed by the worm, choaked up the Channel, and many of the mangeys made bitter complaints of being ruined; having, they said, been detained all the former springs, and no hopes of being able to get through during those of the present moon. From this statement it appears that a Regulation is required, which ought to be rigidly and impartially enforced. To compel all Boats navigating the Nullah to keep on the right