PLAGUE STORIES.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43099, 1 June 1907, Page 4

PLAGUE STORIES.

India is still in the grip of the bubonic plague, and will continue so until the natives learn wavs of wisdom. The work, of' sumuression. is ; really little j easier now than it was in the earl) days of the disease, though great progress has been made in the big cities. A (correspondent of the Times recently described some of the difficulties . with which the plague fighters had to ■ | contend when the epidemic made its iftbt appearance. He was stationed at Blalsar, a town of about 1 {5,000 in- , habitants and about 100 miles from j Bpfribay, when it was discovered that Concealed plague had been raging or weeks. Every native, from educated Brahiims downwards, was possessed with the belief that under evarytoed in the public hospital there was fixed a sugar press in which the body of the patient was ground down- into ■ ointment to be sent to Bombay for the treatment of Europeans. No one would willingly pass along the street in which the building stood for fear of 'being captured. The Mussulmans,

who formed; a large part oi uuc lation, refused to vacate their houses, and, being an umtraotable lot', the Hindu officials were afraid of them. The town was a welter of disease and unrest, and disturbances were of daily occurrence. Ultimately a medical officer who had tact as well as courage took charge,and the plague was stamped out. The correspondent relates 'another experience, this tims concerned with the decision to draw ai cordon along the River Mahi, so as to prevent plague-stricken people from entering the Kairau district. Yerv soon the rumour went abroad that the British rule had come to an end south of the iMlahi, and that real purpose of 'the cordon was to prevent the news from spreading northward. So implicitly was this believed that, in _°ne village a new reign was proclaimed by a religious fanatic whose followers destroyed some Government property and shot down several policemen before they were dispersed. Incidents such as these help us to appreciate the strange complexity of the problems of Indian government.