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generally suffer, simply because they are rather improvident and given to procrastination
and would not have recourse to vaccination in time.
It was very painful to witness the amount of superstition and ignorant prejudice
among the Pársís during the last year in connection with small-pox. One could easily
conceive that the Pársís mind, true to the laws of its own nature, would, during the pro-
longed, constant, and intimate contact with the Hindús, appropriate to a certain extent
their manners and customs, and even imbibe their superstitions and prejudices; but that
the present state of enlightenment and education of the Pársís, at least of Bombay, should
have tolerated this for a moment, is what I could not possibly believe : yet to my amaze-
ment the fact was there, in all its strangeness, that the Pársís even out-hindued the Hindús
themselves in their superstitious regard for small-pox. Whatever influence enlightenment
and education may have had upon the male portion of the Pársís community, there can be
no denying the fact that their females continue to be as ignorant and superstitious as ever ;
and, what is worse, the males invariably succumb to their influence, which is paramount in
these cases.
The same is the case with the Mahomedans ; with this difference, perhaps, that they
have not much enlightenment or education to show, and, as a natural consequence, the
males and females are in the same boat.
The case of the Kolis or fishermen, though painful in the extreme, is a different one
altogether. Whether for weal or for woe they will stick to their dread deity "Deví:" and
rather than deprive her of the victim of her choice, and try to thwart her operations, they
would see every child of theirs in the grave. Wherever they are, they have to a soul con-
sistently persisted in having nothing whatever to do with vaccination. It is true that
they are doubly mischievous, They not only set a bad example to their ignorant and
equally superstitious neighbours, but actually, like the " dog in the manger," do not allow
others the opportunity of availing themselves of the benefits of vaccination. In the Kolíwádá
of the Mándví district, though there were but five deaths among the Kolís, there were
no less than 20 deaths in the other residents, of whom 18 were Hindús and 2 Christians.
They, however, do not care to know what the result of their reprehensible conduct is either
to themselves or to their neighbours.
Extent of Operations.
17. Speaking of the extent of the operations of the Vaccine Department generally
the Native Town, Fort included, though a very extensive
and well-stocked field, is not the one that receives even
its relative amount of benefit from vaccination. Our work is complete—as complete as
circumstances permit—in the outlying suburban districts of the island, Kolábá, Chawa¬
pátí, Wálkeshwar, Máhálakshumí, Warlí, Máhim, Seo, Shiwrí, Tádwádí, are the places
where vaccination is thorough ; and yet even here each place has some disturbing influ-
ence or other of its own which, more or less, mars the perfectness of the general result.
Kolábá has its Kolíwádá ; and a portion of the residents of Lower Kolábá who, filled with
a conceit regarding their position, think it a glory to be able to prevent the Vaccine Esta-
blishment from bringing their children to the vaccine stations to be vaccinated. Chawa¬
pátí, Wálkeshwar, and Máhálakshumí are generally inhabited by Konkaní Hindús, Mál¬
wanís and others, who are particularly migratory, leaving Bombay perhaps when vac-
cine operations are being carried on among them, and returning with unprotected persons
in the very midst of the small-pox season,—mayhap with the germs of the disease itself
with them. A little procrastination completes the work. At Máhálakshumí, as in some
other places, there is another counteracting influence at work. Here the people live in
Wádís, and garden bungalows, that are scattered all over in the capacity of Malis and other
menial servants ; and their Pársís masters, in asserting for their servants the liberty of the