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[CHAP. IV.
Last brought to book by the Police, and with a few salutary convictions and sentences by the
Magistrates, that danger disappeared. None the less surely, however, the panic increased, and
while our Municipal employes showed signs of wavering, the great body of mill-hands
began to be infected by the general alarm and fight of so many persons from the City."
It was from the mill-hands, indeed, that danger threatened, and that danger came. On the
10th of October a number of them assembled outside Arthur Road Hospital, threatening
violence and its speedy demolition. After causing great alarm in it they dispersed. On the
29th about 1,000 of them attacked this same hospital with sticks and stones, entering the
compound, injuring the building, striking the patients, intimidating the staff. Nor was
order restored until the arrival of the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Police,
with a strong force of European and Native Constables. This demonstration was directed
against segregation and removal to hospital, the one measure which the whole people, high
and low, viewed with the wildest hostility. The gravity of the situation induced the Municipal
Commissioner, after conferring with the Commissioner of Police and the Health Officer, to
somewhat relax the stringency of these two measures; but "it must not be supposed," he
writes, " that all attempts at isolation were given up." This unreasoning fear of plague
hospitals extended at first even to hospitals established and managed by Hindoos for their
own caste fellows. As early as October such hospitals were opened in Mandvi and Bhulesh-
war, but were rendered useless by this attitude.
At this time, October 1896, the power to deal with plague had been vested by Government
in the Municipal Commissioner ; it remained vested in him till the appointment of the first
Plague Committee on the 5th of March 1897. This Committee consisted of Brigadier-
General Gatacre, Mr. Snow, Surgeon-Major Dimmock, and Mr. James, Deputy Executive
Engineer. Its Secretary was Major Cahusac.
It should be mentioned here, however, that a Committee consisting of Dr. Lowson,
Surgeon-Major Reade, and Surgeon-Captain Beveridge (who had had previous experience in
Hongkong) was appointed to enquire into, report on, and suggest measures to combat the
progress of the disease throughout the Presidency. Of this Committee, which was dissolved in
the latter half of 1897, Surgeon-Major Reade is the only member at present remaining in
the Presidency. He was appointed to Poona at the end of 1897, or the beginning of 1898,
being shortly afterwards appointed Chief Plague Authority in that city.
To return to the original Committee for Bombay City. The Committee, though not
dissolved, underwent considerable changes of personnel. The first of these was the instalment
of Sir J. Campbell as President on General Gatacre's departure from India in July 1897.
This was followed shortly afterwards (August) by the substitution of Mr. Vining, R. N., for
Major Cahusac as Secretary ; and by the successive appointment to the Committee (towards the
close of the year) of Surgeon-General Bainbridge ; and, in the beginning of 1898, of Surgeon-
Colonel Hay and Mr. Playford Reynolds, Superintending Engineer, who were added in order
to strengthen it.
The plague administration of Bombay City remained in the hands of this Committee from
March 1897 to May 1898, when, on Sir J. Campbell's departure from India, it was replaced
by an entirely new system. This consisted in the abolition of the Plague Committee, the
revesting of all plague control in the Municipal Commissioner and a deputy, who was specially
appointed for this purpose. As the orders inaugurating this radical change do not appear to
be fully quoted in any report previously published, they are given in full here. The scheme
was briefly as follows. A Plague Commissioner was appointed for the whole Presidency, who