The herald., 1897-02-08
|pOMBAY'S DUBON|C PLAGUE
Has Already Half Depopulated
the City
COMMERCE IS PARALYZED
And the Shops and Manufactures Are
Practically Deserted
0vsrcrowded Camps Where fug'tivss I@ke
Refuge-horrors Of the Towers u
si.enc. Europeans Exempt

BOMBAY, Jan. 14.-1t would be idle
to attempt to minimize the terrible VS.
itation from which this city is now SUI
feriug. The scourge has already done
incalculable damage to the great and
growing trade of the port and II Is
feared that even after the disappearance
of the plague it's disastrous consequences
will be felt for long time to come.
The interest which will most seriously
suffer is the mill industry, the backbone
of the city's prosperity and the virtual
support of about one-fourth of its in
habitants. Should the threatened de-
sertion of the operatives take place TINS
would indeed be a terrible intensification
OF the misfortune.
The popuation has already been de-
pleted by more than half through the
wholesale exodus of panic-strlcken IN
habitants and the formerly cfoWueC
streets are so deserted as to be almost
unrecognizable. The Fort, kalbadavie'
Pydhowni, the Bhendy bazaar and the
Mandyie docks, so recently full of stir
and hustle and centers of thriving pusl-
ness are today scenes of mourning ana
desolation. Nearly all branches OF traue
and commerce-piece goods, metais'
crockery, hardware, the snare paZaars
are at a standstill, and the exodus
of rich and poor alike continues, though.
in the case of the latter. it is less marked.
Many shops in the leading thorough
fares as we'll as in the smaller streets
and lanes have closed their door sand
put up their shutters, the occupants
having in some cases announced IN
large Gujarati characters written IN
chalk that they have left for their ma
tive country. The marwaris, or money
lenders whom operatives and others
daily patronized, have vanished and the
small causes court, their usual rendez-
vous, is so deserted that the judges and
clerks are taking fortnights holiday
in turns. A similar state of things pre-
walls in the high court which, owing to
the non-appearance of plaintins and
defendants sits only four hours day.
Even crimes, with the exception of burg
laries, have lately diminished.
Many of the native doctors and grad
yates of the college have sought safety
in flight, and of those who remain, some
either refuse altogether to attend per-
sons stricken with the plague, or, when
they do attend, will not touch the pa
tients, fearing contagion.
1t is only at the railroad stations and
bund,ers, or landing stages, that any
great activity prevails and even there
clerks and others whose duties. require
their attendance in Bombay have taken
refuge at distant stations within a rad
ious of forty miles, to which they travel
backward and forward daily, and where
they are for the most part accommo-
dated in matched huts.
1t is estimated that there are some
5000 persons encamped at Andheri where
there is already scarcity of water and
no sanitary precautions. Unless the
fugitives migrate elsewhere it Is feared
that an outbreak of cholera will follow.
At Poona, which many more of the
refugees have reached. there were re-
corded on the 11th inst. eighty-seven
cases and ifty-onedeaths, due to the
importation of the disease. AT Bandra,
and in other districts which have hither-
to been frequented as health resorts,
the plague is very severe.
In the Mohammedan cemeteries here
the work of burying the victims of the
plague proceeds all day long, and horri-
BILE oVer-crowding is the result. 1t is
feared that the contagion will be carried
from the cemetery to the densely-popu-
lated parts of the city which lie to wind
ward.
Abnormal activity also prevails in the
Hindoo burning ground both night and
day, proving the awful frequency of
deaths arising from the visitation in the
native town. The nights are rendered
hideous by the clashing of cymbals and
by the chanting of the melancholy fun
eral dirge of the Hindoos. Ram sri
ram, ram bolo bhai ram." uttered in a
faint half-hearted manner"
Great difficulty is often experienced in
disposing of the dead, even friends and
relations refusing to carry the corpses.
In some instances women have assisted
to perform this mournful duty. The
funeral professions have thus been shorn
of their usual solemnity. At a funeral
which I witnessed yesterday four Hin
docs of the better class constituted the
whole mourning party. They bore the
corpse on their shoulders, turning their
faces away from it in evident terror.
Parsees are also to be seen carrying
three or four corpses in single line,
there being only five or six mourners.
1t is stated that in the Tower of 81
lence, where the ParSeeS expose their
dead on an iron grating, to be consumed
by birds Of prey, the bodies of large num-
bers who have died with the plague re-
main uneaten by the vultures. In sew
eral cases bodies have been found in the
streets in the Byculla, Bhuleshwar and
Girgaum wards, the chief centers of the
plague. Malabar Hill so far has es
capped nearly unscathed.
The official returns up to yesterday
showed 1894 cases and 1856 deaths, and
last weeks mortality from all causes
amounted to 1888. The returns, how
mortality has occurred among the Hin
docs and Mohammedans, but the Par
sees are also suffering very severely and
are quite panic stricken. The Jains, who
are relatively a small community, have
had a large proportion of deaths, and
are equally terrified by the scourge. The
EurasianS (half English, half Asiatic)
have reported comparatively few deaths
from the plague, and they are not run
ming away. A curious feature of the
epidemic is the fact that immigrants
from Southeastern Europe, although by
no means in robust health, enjoy an i'm
munity equal to that of other Europeans
Yet they live in the very heart of the
most severely stricken district Another
singular fact is that in the jails and in
the Christian orphanages of Bombay
and Bandra, surrounded as they are by
an infected population, not a single case
has occurred.
Diagnosis of the disease demon
strates pretty conclusively that in the
absence of the most pronounced symD-
toms, large proportion of plague cases
have been returned under other heads
such as bronchitis and pneumonia.
A great mortality continues among
rodents, and swine and poultry are also
dying of the disease at Bandra
Europeans here experience much
trouble, owing to the flight of their do
mestic servants. The leading hotels an1
shops have the greatest difficulty in
keeping open from the same cause. Tho
officials and servants Of the Esplanade
hotel have all left and have been re-
-. I.