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that, as a rule, these " Seetlah " festivals affect the innocent infant population chiefly,
but in a country like this, when for nearly two-thirds of the year there is no known
method of protecting the young children from small-pox, they must become, I should
consider, alike dangerous to European and Native children, especially when these festi-
vals are held near a large cantonment like Agra, as I witnessed in the hot weather of
1864. Nothing is considered too minute to be noticed, or to be acted upon, if it will
tend in any way to prevent an outbreak of cholera, while a gigantic centre of conta-
gion like the " Seetlah" poojah at Agra is allowed to diffuse its poison broadcast
over the country.
General remarks.
15. Having discussed so fully in separate paras. many of the subjects to which I
intended to allude in this, it only remains, therefore,
to mention one or two circumstances met with in the
course of last season's tour. The state of the water in the wells in encampments, and
on the Grand Trunk and other main lines of road, has long attracted my attention, and
in November, 1870, when encamped at Khoorjah, I had an opportunity of discussing the
subject with the Commissioner of the Meerut Division and the Magistrate of Boolund¬
shur, who were both of opinion that my suggestions to purify these wells, and to keep
up a supply of fresh, and, hence, pure water, were quite possible. I therefore recorded
them in a letter, No. 335, dated 21st November, 1870, to the Commissioner of the
Meerut Division, and sent a similar one to the Commissioner of the Agra Division.
I am aware that this subject is foreign to vaccination, and my only reason for alluding
to it is, that among a wandering population like that of the North-Western Provinces,
whose only drink is water, the purity of this important commodity cannot but be of the
greatest value in a sanitary point of view; and now that modern research has shown
what a vehicle of disease impure water may become, I trust my digression under this
head may be excused. Under the present voluntary system, great difficulty has been
experienced in protecting, as far as possible, a given tract of country before leaving it
for another; before next season, therefore, I purpose applying for vernacular maps of
the district for each Native Superintendent, and if I can get the tehseels copied sepa-
rately, I will furnish each vaccinator with one of his own tehseel. The object of this is
for the Native Superintendent to mark the villages in his own map in which operations
have been performed, which he can easily do by the weekly returns, and he will thus be
able, not only to note any which may have been omitted, and ascertain the cause on his
next inspection, but will know also the exact spot where to find the vaccinator on a given
date when he goes to record the results of the operations noted in the weekly return
" without results " which is forwarded to him on the evening of the day completing the
week. If each vaccinator has a map of his tehseel, he will be unable to advance the
excuse, not unfrequently given, that he did not know that a village lay in such and such
a direction, and therefore did not visit it. Agreeably to the orders of the Government,
I have despatched monthly to the Magistrates of the twelve districts in my divisions,
a return of each establishment and municipal vaccinator's operations for the month;
and before the commencement of the season I addressed a letter to each of these officials,
in which I mentioned that the object of sending these returns was in the hope that the
Magistrate of the district, or any other officials connected with it, would, if opportunity
offered, test the correctness of these returns, which would answer the double object of
placing an additional check on false returns, and show to the villagers the interest which
the Government, through their officials, took in the scheme. Whether these returns
have been thus tested or not I am unable to say, but I have received no report throwing
doubt upon their veracity. During the past season I heard a strange objection brought
against the present scheme of vaccination, which is only deserving of notice from its
absurdity, though it tends to show how strangely most opposite circumstances appa-
rently are taken to prove a statement. The objection was, that the Government in
circulating vaccination gratuitously was, in addition to conferring some supposed benefit
on the infant population, indelibly marking them; the object of the latter proceeding
9