5
Tahilram, the President, and Mr. Strachan, the Engineer and Secretary, were
present. The Acting Commissioner had consulted these officers. The Collector
considered that Section 73 of the District Municipal Act was inadequate to deal
with the disease and there was no provision of law to render compulsory notification
of plague legal. The Honourable Mr. James, in a letter of 30th November 1896,
had expressed a similar opinion that, under Section 73, compulsory segregation of
the sick would be unauthorized. The Principal Medical Officer, the Collector of
Karachi and the President of the Municipality, as also Mr. Strachan and Dr.
Kaka were of opinion that no segregation of sick was possible without com-
pulsion, and that in the present state of the public mind compulsion would not
be the best way of meeting the epidemic. In fact, it would be the worst possible
means to adopt. As a scientific method, the Civil Surgeon and the Deputy
Sanitary Commissioner advocated segregation, but considered compulsion neces-
sary, and that it would be met by opposition.
The Acting Commissioner reviewed the position with great care, chiefly in
view of the fact that there were, according to the last census, over 51,000
Muhammadans to some 42,000 Hindus, that the former had probably still
further increased the disparity of numbers in the interval, and that it was practi-
cally a Hindu Municipality who would have the task of enforcing rules in the
teeth of the Muhammadan majority, a majority composed largely of a fanatical
congeries of tribes and nations, not one of whom had listened to the proposal for
caste hospitals, nor was there a Muhammadan hospital in existence. Asked how
the Municipality proposed to carry out their rules, the reply was " The Police. "
And the Acting Commissioner silently resolved that if the Municipality were to
pass rules hateful to both Hindu and Muhammadan, at once retire to the back-
ground, and leave the Police to fight with the people, he would prefer the rules
should be his own, the personality his own, and before attempting to drive a
crowd of terrified and panic-stricken people, he would be quite sure he could
treat the sick when they were segregated. He had seen the effect in cholera
and famine of crowding numbers without carefully prepared arrangement, and
determined to meet Hindu with Hindu and Muhammadan with Muhammadan,
and, if possible, to win the confidence of both before resorting to compulsion.
On the 4th January, immediately after the Meeting, the Collector was
informed that the Acting Commissioner was unable to sanction the compulsory
removal clause as it stood. The clause, read with the directions, left a door of
escape for the rich and none for the poor, and these would ignorantly and
fanatically resist compulsion. Government were informed that the fear of this
impending compulsory seizure of the sick had already produced something like
panic : medical aid was being rejected, sickness was concealed, and the popula-
tion hostile. Surgeon-Colonel Bainbridge had concurred that it would be
inadvisable to resort to compulsion. The segregation must be effectual, or it
must be abandoned as impracticable. The Municipal President and the Engineer
and Secretary had warned that a reign of terror would certainly follow resort to
force, and better results were to be expected from conciliation. It came to
this—either sick people must be dragged from their homes by force and opposi-
tion be met by force, or else this terror of compulsory removal must be allayed
and sympathy and conciliation take its place. The success of segregation
depended upon the population being more or less consenting, not opposed, to the
remedy. The Muhammadans, for example, would not even set a house apart.
A Muhammadan Medical officer would greatly strengthen the Municipality, and
an effort would be made to render the hospitals, if possible, popular.
A valuable suggestion from Surgeon-Lieut.-Colonel Clarkson was placed
before the Meeting, and accepted by the Municipality, that the town should be
divided into districts and a Medical officer be appointed to each, to see every
case of suspected plague before removal, and an Inspector, whose duty it would
be to find out the cases. The Municipality immediately appointed Inspectors,
and these men proved most useful in securing correct and early information,
The Collector writes in paragraph 24 of his report that he is still firmly
convinced that the policy adopted at the time was the right policy : that, to a
very considerable extent, it had the immediate effect aimed at ; the people readi-
ly opened their houses to visitation and disinfection, while the same conciliatory
B 1440—2