CALCUTTA AND THE SUBURBS.
19
finding out who was to take the initiative in arresting him, he inculcated open resistance to
the law. Before he had time to carry his designs further into execution he was tried before
a magistrate and sentenced to the full penalty of confinement with hard labour for three
calendar months.
Before moving for a prosecution I satisfied myself that this man was not a professional
inoculator, and that he had not been driven into breaking the law by the loss of his hereditary
occupation. The man's name was Oodeen Bahalia, and sufficiently points him out as deserving
of no sympathy while inoculating in Calcutta, even had the investigation not shown that he
was deserving of special punishment.
Defects in the
Act prohibiting
inoculation.
It is most unlikely that recourse will have to be made sufficiently often to this law in
Calcutta to render it advisable to have the Act amended; but in case any emergency may arise
in other districts, it may perhaps not be out of place for me to put on record that the Act, as
it at present stands, is not an easy one to work. While conducting the prosecution with the
law officers of Government it appeared—
1st.—That it was not the business of any particular officer to take the initiative.
2nd.—That even when undoubted inoculation had taken place, it was nowhere distinctly
laid down that the parents or guardians were responsible in any way, or could be punished
under the Act.
In the present instance, as I had no intention of having the poor misguided parents
punished, it did not signify much; but under many circumstances this omission would simply
constitute the Act a dead letter, and render it impossible to work its provision. Any good
detective can bring evidence into court of children having been inoculated, and he can also
bring the inoculator before the magistrate; but to connect the two together would in most
cases prove an impossiblity. The parents of the child have only to remain silent or give
false evidence, and the prosecution falls through. An inoculator is a priest of the goddess
Shitolla, and under her special protection. The parent of any child giving evidence against
an inoculator brings down the vengeance of this deity on the household, and her victims die
of small-pox. Under these circumstances it can be easily foreseen how little evidence would
be forthcoming.
"Were it clearly laid down that any parents or guardians inoculating a child were
punishable, in most cases a conviction would be easy; and in the event of an inoculator
escaping, owing to the impossibility of procuring direct evidence, an individual could be
singled out from an inoculating community and punished as a warning to the others. In
the case in point every effort to secure evidence failed till Mr. Wauchope, the Commissioner of
Police, himself took the matter personally into his own hands.
Proposal to extend
the vaccinated area
round Calcutta.
10. Proposal to extend the vaccinated area round Calcutta.—This large metropolis is
directly influenced by the districts round about. When they are overrun with small-pox,
Calcutta suffers. We are never safe while our neighbours are in danger. As the result of
previous strong recommendations, Government sanctioned a vaccine establishment in the
Metropolitan circles to throw a protective cordon of five millions of persons comparatively
free from small-pox round Calcutta. The success of this measure has surpassed my most
sanguine expectations. I still, however, feel most strongly that enough in this direction has
not been done, and that I have not yet placed Calcutta in a position of safety. I beg to
impress this fact on the attention of Government, and to ask that provision should be made
for extending this cordon by sanctioning an establishment for vaccinating four unprotected
districts immediately beyond those already provided with the prophylactic.
I have had a map prepared showing the relation of existing circles of vaccination to
Calcutta, and append it to this report. By reference to the map it becomes evident at a
glance that Calcutta is surrounded by a large tract of country in which vaccine
establishments are at work. With the exception of five districts, the others round Calcutta
are all included in existing vaccine circles. I propose that four of these districts, coloured
pink on the map, should now be provided with a vaccine establishment and included within
the Metropolitan circles.
These four districts, Midnapore, Bankoora, Beerbhoom, and Jessore, are for the present
specially those it is desirable to provide with vaccination, as sending small-pox cases to
Calcutta. The fifth, Moorshedabad, is expressly left out, as it does not belong to the group
of districts which naturally fall within the Metropolitan circles. Moorshedabad must wait
to be provided for till the time arrives when the Sonthal Pergunnahs circle of vaccination
can be united to the Darjeeling circle, and made to include all the districts under the
Commissioners of Bhagulpore and Rajshahye.
It is premature as yet to attempt to fix a permanent strength for the Metropolitan
circles after these four districts have been added to them. If a fourth deputy superin-
tendent were added, and the strength of the subordinate establishment of the three existing
circles, as well as that of the proposed additional one, were raised to the same strength as
that sanctioned for Dacca, a close approximation would be made to the requirements of the
case. The districts shaded pink in the map, constituting dangerous spots to Calcutta amid
a large tract where vaccination has already been provided, appeal forcibly to the eye when
represented in such a way.