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(b). With regard to the effect of the epidemic on trade, agriculture, &c., Mr. Levi
notes :—
Effects on trade, &c.
" The outbreak was not of sufficiently long duration, nor sufficiently widespread to very
severely affect trade agricultures or the
labour market. Orphans were on the whole
fairly well looked after, many having property owing to the deaths of their parents. In
some cases in which it was feared that they might be neglected, they were periodically
weighed before the Plague Executive Officers."
There was an increase in crime. Mr. Levi notes :—
" Thefts were very numerous from evacuated houses, and owing to the fact that they
were as a rule discovered some time afterwards were almost impossible of detection. If
one party in a village refused to evacuate, it generally spent its time in looting the houses
of those who had gone out. In one vill?ge this was varied by the practice of setting their
houses on fire. In all such cases detection and conviction is difficult, as the actual eye
witnesses are necessarily partisans of the perpetrators."
Precautionary measures.
(c). In many villages an attempt was made to exclude strangers, in some excellent
watch was kept, and these, though in the centre
of the infected area, escaped scatheless.
The difficulty of maintaining such watch and ward is commented on both by the
Plague Medical Officer and the Executive Plague Officer. The former writes : " People of
one village often visited infected places where they had relations and by this means brought
in the infection"; and the latter remarks : " It is a difficult business and can only be carried
out by Lambardárs of great influence who don't mind being unpleasant to their neighbours.'"
Mr. Millar writes : —
" It is, however, very difficult to keep out women from villages. As has often happened
a woman lost her husband by plague in Ludhiána District and came to her relations in
Moga Tahsíl. To the credit of many villages it can be said that regular segregation was
insisted on. The woman was kept outside the village for a week or so. This sort of
thing should be encouraged."
Methods of obtaining information regarding plague
occurrences.
(d). Village Lambardárs and Chaukídárs
were responsible for reporting plague cases and
deaths to the Patwárís who maintained
registers and submitted them through the Tahaildárs. With regard to the records of plague
occurrences Mr. Levi writes :—
" I believe all deaths to have been faithfully reported, but cases in which patients
recovered were undoubtedly suppressed. This has been especially the case in May and June
when every village has been anxious to show a clean sheet ; thus the case mortality for
June is quite unreliable, and, had all non-fatal cases been reported, would probably have
been under 30 per cent."
Evacuation.
(e). In the beginning of the epidemic evacuation was the measure against which
the people most absolutely set their force.
Mr. Levi writes :—
"They were firmly convinced that once they evacuated, their village would be invaded
by a host of plague officials, and they would not be allowed to go back to their villages for
at least six months. The more it was explained to them that they would remain their
own masters in the matter, the more suspicious they became. However, when once a start
had been made, most villages evacuated to a greater or less extent, and with the exception
of Talwandi Malyán', Baddowál and Himmatpura and Rajiána, there was in the end no village
some of whose members did not evacuate.
" As to evacuation, without going into the history of the outbreak in every village, it is
impossible to define the extent to which it was carried out. In some villages a few houses
only made a pretence of moving out and kept up continual intercourse with the infected site,
and in others, on the first death, the whole population moved out bodily, appointed a
watchman or two, and never came back till the outbreak had subsided and the village had
been chemically disinfected. Between these two extremes every gradation was observable r
it is not even possible to classify villages in order, as in some all the people evacuated in a
half-hearted manner, and in others one section retired to the fields and cut off its con-
nection with the remainder who stopped in and died. The effect of the population going
out was a marked decrease of the disease. The happiest results were obtained by a village
or patti which went out at once and stopped out, in which case in general the disease was-
confined to their more foolish brethern who stopped in.
" It may now be confidently stated that the inhabitants of both tahsils are now
convinced of the efficacy of evacuation, and in future if they do not adopt it, it will be only
because of mutual jealousies or fear of thefts from the abandoned houses."