43
" 26. On the 9th idem the Municipality again met and proposed a rule, under which recalci-
trants only -would be liable to have their sick removed, with the sanction of the Managing Com-
mittee and the Collector, but this the Commissioner did not approve of, on the ground that it
would not be wise to re-awaken the alarm, so recently allayed. He sanctioned, however, a rule
directing that in case the sick migrated from affected to non-affected areas, they would be liable
to be removed to hospital.
" 27. Early in January, when I had returned for a few days to the districts, a plague
patient was brought into one of the bungalows in the Civil Lines and died there. Imme-
diately on my return, I took measures to stop such a thing happening again, and succeeded
in removing the family from the bungalow.
" 28. This and the migration of persons from the infected quarters of the town to the
Sadar Bazar led to my arranging on the 13th idem for a cordon of foot and mounted police,
aided by the kind consent of the General Officer Commanding, on the north-west side of
Cantonment, by men of the 3rd Baluchis, for the purpose of specially protecting canton-
ments, Camp and the tiadar Bazar from such migrations.
"29. At the same time I arranged, in consultation with the Superintendent of Police,·
for a special party under an Inspector and a 2nd Class Magistrate to be present while
deserted houses were opened by the Municipal employes for disinfection, and in order to pro-
tect the property of all houses entered from theft.
"30. Meanwhile, the disease had crossed the Lyari on the 10th oi January, and on
the 18th the f Muhanas' of Nauabad declined to allow the Health Officer to visit a house
in which there was a suspected case, to disinfect another house in which a death from
plague had occurred, and to burn a hut in which there had also been a death.
"31. The Khadda and Nauabad are the two fishermen's villages, and occupy the
southern end on the harbour side of the Trans-Lyari tract. These fishermen form the
most unruly section of the Karachi Mahomedans, and unfortunately on several occasions,
when cholera had visited their villages, they had been permitted to defy the authorities,
and reject disinfectants and other remedial measures.
" 32. Consequently, those who know Karachi well (of whom I was not one, never having
served in the district prior to November 1895), were unanimously of opinion that any
attempt to enforce our measures would meet with resistance.
(! 33. I went, however, to the village early on the 19th, in company with Dr. Arnim,
and met there the Municipal Engineer and Health Officer, and the Mukhtyarkar and Town
Inspector of Police; all of whom had-written to me the evening before expressing their
opinion that the matter was serious.
" 34, Being determined to secure the carrying out of our measures peaceably, if possible
I went to the door of the three obstructionists and directed the Mukhtyarkar to explain
fully to them the law, the penalty for disobedience, and the certainty that it would be
enforced, and then to demand compliance. On their firmly, but not disrespectfully, refusing,
he recorded their names and we withdrew. The same evening I tried and sentenced three
to one month's imprisonment under Section 183, Indian Penal Code, four more receiving a
similar sentence from the First Class Magistrate the next morning.
" 35. This completely broke the back of all direct opposition in Karachi. The accused
literally wept on hearing their sentences, and offered to carry out any measure which I might
impose upon them, while on the following day several of the headmen came to the Mukh-
tyarkar's Office and on their knees begged to be pardoned. Yet it is a fact, of which I was
not aware, when standing in the street at Nauabad, that a large number of people from both
villages had collected with sticks which they would doubtless have used have we entered
their houses forcibly.
"36. On the next morning the three houses, regarding which opposition arose, were
visited, disinfected, and burnt respectively without objection from any one, and thereafter
I became on excellent terms with the people of both villages, and even on his release with
one of the men whom I had sentenced.
" 37. Rather before the middle of January commenced the protracted negotiations}
which led to a large section of the Hindus of the City, known as the ' Nasarpuris/ who
were suffering greatly from the disease, quitting their houses and shops and occupying a
village of reed and mat huts built for them by the Municipality on the opposite bank of the
Lyari.
"38. Meeting after meeting was held in order to overcome their prejudice. Mr. T'ahil
rarn, the Municipal President, Mr. Framroze, the Mukhtyarkar, myself and others all doing
our best to persuade them, until on the 22nd, after a final meeting at the Mukhtyarkar^ Office,
when we agreed to certain condition-s they actually commenced to move, some 2,000 arriving
in the Camp by the 24th, where the majority of them remained until the 14th of May.
" 39. One of the conditions imposed was that they should be allowed to go and return
daily to their business in the City. Had this not been permitted they would never have·
moved. They were also allowed to bring their sick "with them,