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" number of cases of plague. The Medical Officer of each section of the ward accom-
" panies one of the Committees at least twice in each week, in order to keep in touch
" with them, and also to keep up their working. The District Officer also accompanies
" Committees or particular members at frequent intervals. Their work and its nature
" varies considerably according to the individuality of the chairman or member and
" the section in which they work. Some gentlemen go out regularly morning and
" evening and seem to put a regular enthusiasm into their voluntary duties, others go
" out once or twice a week, others again (but they are very few) do not go out at all
" except when stirred up by the District Officer to an occasional effort. Besides their
" work of house visitation, the Committees or their individual members are of great
" assistance in many other ways—in reporting dirty or overcrowded houses, in per-
" suading landlords or tenants to limewash and clean their houses, in persuading
" people to leave infected houses, and go to camps or elsewhere, in fact in a great many
" ways that cannot be accurately gauged by the number of cases of plague that they
"do or do not report during the week. I consider that so long as there is an active and
" intimate connection between the District Officer and his Committees, they are a great
' and very useful means of carrying out plague measures in a conciliatory manner and
" also of discovering plague cases. Of course, I am only speaking generally, as in
" many instances cases of plague areas studiously and effectually concealed from these
" gentlemen as they are from the District or Medical Officers."
An endeavour was made in C Ward to get the Committees to assist-
in encouraging inoculation. But their sympathies in its favour were
somewhat doubtful ; they never took the matter up very heartily, and
practically no result was obtained in this direction, though certain promi-
nent individuals, as has been elsewhere described, made every effort.
Later on at the end of May Lieut. Warneford again writes :—
" As regards the Committees in the ward, they have, I think, answered
" their purpose admirably, while they have not been the means of directly bringing
" to notice more than a third to a half of the plague cases that we have recorded,.
" yet they have been the means of making the necessity of our measures, and the
" justice of our intentions, more or less understood by the people so that we
" have been able to do our work with their good will. In dealing with Com-
"mittees my object has been to encourage individuality and independence of
" action on the part of those members who show zeal and capability and ac-
" cordingly all plague cases and other urgent matters are reported direct to the
" District Officer or section Medical Officer concerned, while the routine weekly
" reports of work done are submitted through the chairman. Frequent meetings
" and discussions have been discouraged, and it has been found that as a general rule
" the Volunteers have loyally carried out the suggestions made to them. At the
" same time it has been found very necessary to keep in constant touch and sympathy
" with them in their work, otherwise they slacken off immediately. Probably better
" results have been obtained from many small committees, than from a few large
" ones, as a more independent charge encourages energy and pride in their work. It
" has been difficult to get the Volunteers to keep a thorough watch on and a record
" of all sickness found, whether plague or not, as to carry this out completely re-
quires more time and trouble than the average Volunteers can spare. However, in
" the most plague-infected section of the ward—Kumbharwada—nearly all the mem-
".bers keep a very complete supervision over ordinary sickness, and consequently
" there is hardly a death that occurs that these gentlemen do not know the pre-
" vious history of. This, of course, is a great assistance and makes the work of get-
" ting hold of every case of plague for disinfection so much the more easy and
" certain. The part of our work that met at first with rather doubtful support from