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only 5 Volunteers, and it is obvious that they could not in any way take
the place of an organized plague administration. They did, however,
render invaluable assistance, Mr. G. Lund in especial taking upon him
the responsibilities of an assistant District Officer, and almost entirely
relieving the District Officer of his anxieties in connection with the
Tarwari section. They all took a keen interest in pushing inoculation,
and one of them, Dr. Pathare, whose death from plague was a severe
loss, performed no less than 3,553 operations. Thanks to their efforts
no district had more success in this direction.
The total number who volunteered at different times in F and G
wards was 102 ; and of these about 50 worked steadily and well. The
most successful were Rao Bahadur Vassanji Khimji's Committee in
Dodar and Naigaum, Rao Saheb Sitaram Khanderao's in Sion, and
Mr, C. Reel'is in Worli. These Committees worked as well as any in
the Island, their procedure was similar to that of the C Ward Volunteers,,
and their success as great. It was, however, obviously impossible
for so small a number to adequately supervise the enormous area of this
district, and though many worked hard in their individual capacity,
the district staff had to rely to a large extent upon its own efforts.
Sirdar Mahomed Yakub's interesting account of voluntary work
in the Central District is given below :—
" The Memons constitute one of the most important Mussalman communities
" in Bombay. For various reasons, plague work among them had been going on in
" an unsatisfactory manner. The Volunteers were doing little. House-to-house
" search by Volunteers was nominal or unknown, and although in September the
" mortality was as high as double the average, not a single plague case was reported
"nor was information of any case obtained from any other source. In one case only
" information had been got under exceptional circumstances, Within two weeks
" of the month of September in the Kolsa Moholla five deaths, one after another, took
" place in one house, and no less a person than the then Chairman of the Committee
"supported, before the District Officer, stories ascribing each death to a non-plague
" sickness. There were other Memon houses in which one death was followed by
" another or more in the same house, but they were always ascribed to causes other
" than plague. None of the four Moholla Hospitals of the Memons had been open,
" and no one had been sent to camp or hospital. The one patient mentioned above
" was segregated in his house. One Jamayefc had, from the first, declined to form a
" Committee of Volunteers; the other Jamayets had separated from them owing to
" differences ; and the leaders of the latter were, on the one hand, anxious that they
"should not do anything to incur displeasure of their people and, on the other hand,
" the people would not listen to the leaders, because they knew that their neighbours,
" —the rival Jamayet, — did nothing."
" When my district was formed on 1st November 1898 I had ascertained
" the principal causes which trade the Memon community so backward in plague
" matters. On taking over the charge I convened a meeting of the Cutchi Memon
"Jamayet, in which not only the plague Volunteers assembled, but many more
"leaders of the Jamayet and the oldest members of their community also attended.
"This meeting was held at the house of the Chairman Mr. Abdool Rahiman. I
"addressed the Memon leaders assembled there, impressing on them first the
" paramount necessity of sincere obedience to the araers desires of the ruling