12
and carts removing what would not burn, while limo washing by owners or
Municipal agency became nearly universal. Surgeon-Captain Arnim was
specially successful in getting the owners and occupiers to do the work person-
ally under repeated inspection, and this example was quickly followed and so
relieved the overstrained officers. On the 4th there were 43 deaths, on the
5th 35, but the 6th recorded 58 cases and 52 deaths, and new efforts were called
for. But it was the extreme point touched, and the disease began to yield, and
never afterwards got out of control. Mr. Crouch, the Public Prosecutor, had,
unsought, quietly added himself to the baud of Superintendents, and Mr. Cum-
ming, the Port Trust Secretary, was another valuable addition, every man
working the whole day long, meeting at the Denso Hall, or other appointed
spot, between 6 and 7 A.M., to get the returns of the day before and muster
gangs, and working on till dark, only returning for breakfast. By the 11th
February, the arrear work in disinfecting houses in which plague cases had
occurred had been overtaken, and from that date the systematic cleaning of
houses in which cases had not occurred was commenced.
The scenes were heart-rending. In one little close of respectable houses,
all within a few yards, 21 plague death-marks could be counted—6 and 7
deaths in one house. There had been a stampede of the healthy families from
the badly infected places, and many had removed with their first sick relative
to other parts of the town, but there was no panic in the sense that anything
was noticeable in the streets. Only when houses were entered was the state
of affairs disclosed, and then it was good to see the devotion, ignorant though
it was, with which the survivors would lay out their dead and attend the
funeral. The Acting Commissioner endeavoured, for the sake of example to
the people and the preservation of the workers, to insist on disinfection, by
spraying in the manner appointed by Doctors Kaka and Arnim, preceding the
advance into the houses. But there was as noble and devoted a band of
officers and men as could be gathered together, whom nothing would restrain.
As an example of the ir.tense anxiety of these days, after a long morning
with Messrs. Hart-Davies and Cadell, in the evening it was reported to the Acting
Commissioner that Mr. Cadell was down with fever. The Civil Surgeon was
sent for, and took the temperature. It was normal—not plague ; but the shock
to the Acting Commissioner when he saw the officer he had summoned sudden-
ly, as it were struck down, he will not easily forget, At that time, the immunity
of Europeans was not realised, and the Acting Commissioner had served
under his well-known father Colonel Cadell, and the son followed the father in
disregard of danger.
With the increased mortality, it was feared there might be careless bury-
ing, and with increased stringency that bodies might be surreptitiously re-
moved. From the beginning of January, one or two Police had been, posted,
but from the 3rd February the District Superintendent of Police was requested
to take the burial and burning grounds under his personal supervision, and there-
after the Police returns became a very useful addition to the daily Municipal
record, allaying any suspicion lest deaths might be escaping record.
In the letter to Government dated 6th January, it was stated that the
presence of a thoroughly competent Muhammadan Medical officer would greatly
strengthen the Health Officer. The Principal Medical Officer had been able
to supply one of the best in Sind, Sheikh Abdul Rahman. This Hospital
Assistant came from Mirpur Khas, and soon commanded respect. Government
were good enough to procure an Assistant Surgeon Subhan Ali from the
North-Western Provinces, and the Municipality obtained Mr. Fazul Ahmad, a
private practitioner, from Amritsar. All these were at work by the first week
in February in the Trans-Lyari Quarter.
The Trans-Lyari Quarter is separated from the town of Karachi by the
broad, sandy bed of the Lyari. On the fiats beyond, are clustered 20 settle-
ments of poor Muhammadans, of different tribes,—fisher people, Sidis, Mekranis,
Pathans, Baluchis, Brahuis, &c.,—each in their separate village. 12 of the
settlements are mostly only reed and mud-plastered huts. The remaining
eight are of inferior houses of a permanent type. The sites of the huts are