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13. The house-to-house inspection was rendered difficult by the way in
which buildings in the city were entangled together, often forming veritable
mazes, and affording facuities to persons who knew the ground to avoid search
parties. The darkness of many of the rooms in Native houses made it necessary
to search them by the light of a lantern.
14. In order that they might exercise proper control over their men,
Officers commanding search divisions were required to keep their search parties
together under their own eyes as much as possible, the object in view being
to prevent the men from loitering or getting into mischief.
15. The attitude of the inhabitants of the city towards the search parties
was, on the whole, friendly, though people who had sick in their houses usually
tried to conceal them. The Brahmin community was the only one whose beha-
viour towards the troops employed was generally unfriendly. In the Brahmin
quarters the troops met with a good deal of obstruction, which, however, always
stopped short of forcible resistance.
16. Of the Native gentlemen who volunteered to accompany the search
parties the majority did not attend regularly and some did not attend at all.
The following are the gentlemen who are reported by the Officers commanding
the search divisions to have rendered useful service :—·
Professor S. Moulvi of the Deccan College.
Doctor Anant Bhavanishankar.
Nabab Abdul Eerozkhau.
Sirdár Bahádur Subhedár Major Shaik Esmail, late 7th Bombay In-
fantry.
Subhedár Major Shaik Umar Bahadur, late 10th Bombay Infantry.
Sirdar Bahadur Subhedár Rajanasu, late Bombay Sappers and Miners..
Subhedár Ramchaiidra, late 7th Bombay Infantry.
Subhedár Major Rattan Mehta, late 17th Bombay Infantry.
Subhedár Shalom Esniail.
Subhedár Bandehji Bobinaji.
Of the gentlemen who have rendered the best service the majority are.
retired Native Officers. Professor Moulvi appears to have been specially useful
in discovering concealed cases.
17. Of the ladies that accompanied the search divisions the following
rendered valuable assistance :—·
Miss Bernard.
Doctor Miss L. Bernard.
Doctor Miss Crawley.
Miss Mclntosh.
Miss Dias.
Mrs. Goodall.
The two first named ladies belong to the Church of Scotland Mission, while
the third is in charge of the Panch IIowds Mission Dispensary. All three ladies
gave their services without remuneration, and I cannot speak too highly of the
devoted work they did. Miss Mclntosh who had had considerable experience of
plague-nursing in Hongkong, was an invaluable assistant to the search parties
till April 18th, when she was transferred to the General Plague Hospital on
nursing duty. Miss Dias and Mrs. Goodall, the former of whom is a local
medical practitioner and the latter a monthly nurse, proved themselves reliable
and energetic as lady searchers.
18. The result of the search work on each day of the operations is given in
Appendix 5. From March 13th to May 19th 218,124 houses were searched,
and 338 plague cases and 64 corpses were found. The houses in the city were
searched on an average 11 times each. The sufferers from the plague were
removed to hospital, and arrangements were made for the prompt disposal of the
corpses. The full value of the work done by the search parties cannot be gauged
by the number of cases they discovered. The institution of the search by the
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