3-086-305 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scenes in Plague-Stricken Bombay: removing body of a deserted child to the common burning-ground, 1898. '...the health outlook of India may be taken as decidedly more cheerful. One of the most hopeful signs is the steady decrease of deaths in Bombay, the number for the week ending May 12 being 138, against 263 for the seven days preceding...The first announcement of the outbreak, of course, occasioned a tremendous exodus - chiefly of women and children - but the public mind is now considerably reassured. What the native Indian fears almost more than the plague is segregation, so the Lieutenant-General's assurance that there would be no separation of husband and wife, and respect shown to the purdah system, may possibly account for the considerable decrease in the number of fugitives...Plague riots are happily subsiding, no serious outbreak against the sanitary police having been reported since the affair which occurred late in April at Garshanker village, in the Hoshiarpur District. These plague riots have been, of course, occasioned by the abhorrence of all castes alike to the publicity and supposed disgrace of the hospital system.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.