Volume 1

Report of the Municipal Commissioner on the Plague in Bombay for the year ending 31st May 1899 (-31st May 1901). (Charts and Diagrams to accompany the Municipal Commissioner's Plague Report for the year ending 31st May 1900).

  • Harvey, W.L.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Municipal Commissioner on the Plague in Bombay for the year ending 31st May 1899 (-31st May 1901). (Charts and Diagrams to accompany the Municipal Commissioner's Plague Report for the year ending 31st May 1900). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    spect of a severe epidemic, it was felt that something must be done to further improve matters. The weak points of the system then in operation have been indicated above and the lines along which im- provement might be looked for were clear. The police required to be stimulated, and the people had in some way to be induced to give information themselves. After much consideration the following scheme was introduced :—Every policeman on duty in the City was provided with a small book of tickets in foil and counterfoil ; whenever he heard of a death in his beat he was to verify the address and offer a ticket to a member of the funeral party ; and at the time of reporting the matter the Recording Officer was to initial the counterfoil in token of the information having been registered and passed on to the District Officer. For every ticket issued the constable was to get annas 2. The Officers on duty at the various cemeteries were at the same time instructed to ask for the ticket whenever a body was brought for disposal, unless a certificate from a volunteer or some other satisfactory document indicating the address was forthcoming, and at the principal cemeteries a small staff'of messengers was organised under the supervision of a few reliable men who were to return with the funeral party and verify the address in every case where a ticket or other satisfactory certificate was not forthcoming. This scheme, thanks to the co-operation of the Commissioner of Police, Mr. H. Kennedy, was introduced at the begin- ning of February. The people readily fell in with the idea of obtaining tickets from the police and the work of the police considerably improved. The people in the few cases when they came to the cemeteries unprovided with the necessary ticket or certificate made no difficulty about taking a messenger back with them to indicate the house from which they came, and the number of untraceable deaths fell from about 10 to about 6 or 7 per cent. This system might have continued to work satisfactorily, but on the one hand the reward of two annas was not a very great one to the man, though it might amount up to considerable sum for the Municipality to pay. One case came to notice where a policeman issued a ticket to a relation (whose wife died of plague) without registering the address. He lost 2 annas for the ticket, but his object was to save his friends any trouble in the way of disinfection, &c„, and it was only by chance that the District Officer found out the circumstances. The Police also had other duties to perform ; and while for one reason or another they missed a few deaths or gave wrong addresses in a certain number of cases, it was impossible to hold such failure to be a dereliction of duty or to demand their punishment. On the other hand the work was alien to their proper duties which occasionally suffered in consequence of the registration wyork, and the Police Commissioner not unnaturally, as soon as the mortality approached the normal, pressed that his men might be relieved of all connection with death registration. The system was also somewhat cumbrous inasmuch as the police force as a body are not able to read and write, and while the interposition of Recording Officers was