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His EXCELLENCY THE EIGHT HONOURABLE
WILLIAM MANSFIELD,
. BARON SANDHURST, G. C. I. K,
Governor and President in Council,
BOMBAY.
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY,
We, the President and Members of the Mahratha Plague Hospital Committee,
on behalf of the Mahratha community, beg most respectfully to thank Your Excel-
lency for honouring us to-day with a farewell visit and to offer Your Excellency a
cordial welcome.
The panic and the havoc that were caused by the plague during the first out-
break, giving rise to a general exodus of the masses from Bombay, meant a great
loss to the multifarious industries and commerce of the City. But thanks to the
foresight of Your Excellency and to the untiring efforts of Sir James Campbell the
Mahratha Hospital was opened in January 1898.
Sir James Campbell from the outset requisitioned the services of Sirdar Mir
Abdulali, Khan Bahadur, the founder and patron or the back-bone as appropriately
termed by Your Excellency, of this Hospital. The idea was an excellent one
as the establishment of this institution has saved the industries and commerce of
this great City by creating confidence in the minds of the panic-stricken proletariat.
Here plague patients of the various sects of the Hindu community except those of
low castes are admitted. Recently the average number of cases under treatment
has been about 350 per diem, but there is accommodation for over 500 souls now
and provision can be made for more if necessary. Small-pox patients have also
now been received in large numbers without any distinction of caste or creed.
We may be permitted here to mention. some of the principal causes of the
immense popularity of this unique institution. The patients are allowed free
choice of treatment (English, Native, or their own) and their relations and friends
have access to them at all times without'any restriction. Moreover, ample accom-
modation is made for contacts, who live in the Hospital compound and wait upon
their dear and near ones. These i'acilities and concessions have inspired the work-
ing classes of the Mahratha community with confidence to such an extent that most
of those attacked by the dire epidemic repair to this Hospital, without any fear
or compulsion, and apply for admission even when they are not suffering from
plague.
Your Excellency has always evinced the keenest interest in the welfare of this
Institution and honoured us by frequent visits. It will be impossible to find appro-
priate words to describe the great encouragement and support we have ever received
at the hands of Your Excellency, and of those officials of Government \vho have been
nobly combatting this terrible scourge. We cannot refrain ourselves from express-
ing our deep sense of regret at the fact that Your Excellency's term of office
, expires shortly.
The thought that Your Excellency, who has been so, sympathetic with suffer-
ing humanity, is soon to be separated from us has caused us all great sorrow and
the only consolation we find lies in the fact that Your Excellency is goino- home
to be among Your Excellency's friends and relations, where Your Excellency will
be able to enjoy a well earned rest after Your Excellency's arduous work here as
the Governor. The high post which Your Excellency has held here as the repre-
sentative of Her Majesty the Queen-Empress is even in the most ordinary times of
a responsible and onerous character, but the whole term of Your Excellency's