162 



The outcry against venomous snakes I have shewn to 

 be purely sensational, and the persons who raise it have 

 not the faintest idea of the waste of public money they are 

 urging on Government. A medical man who should know 

 better, writes,, " is there no benevolent individual in this 

 Presidency who would give a few rupees to rescue the lives 

 of so many of our fellow-creatures so suddenly and rapidly 

 put out of existence ?"* and proposes to raise a subscription 

 fund, the interest of which should be expended for the 

 purpose of destroying noxious snakes (M, M. /., Feby. 1871). 

 One cannot but give credit to Dr. Shortt for wishing to 

 effect the destruction by voluntary subscription, however 

 much the proposal to wage warfare with Rs. 250 per annum 



a 1/ 



may remind one of the energetic old lady's assault on the 

 Atlantic Ocean with her mop. The outcry for the exter- 

 mination of venomous snakes is rarely so modest and, if 

 the system urged on Government were ever carried into 

 effect, the funds required would amount to many thousand 

 times as much as the above moderate estimate. But Indian 

 estimates are always small at first. 



I will now give a few facts to show the utter absurdity 

 of these schemes and the waste of public money caused by 

 the sensational outcry against the ravages of venomous 

 snakes. 



In Banco ora, a small district of Lower Bengal, no less 



* Dr. Shortt, who writes to the above effect, and says that a snake 

 which has bitten one person " is permitted to use its deadly fangs 

 on many more" (as if there were man-eating cobras going about) has 

 the sense to own that " even if an antidote sure and certain in its 

 effects as a remedy, be discovered, it would not save the lives of the 

 hmidredth part of the people who are now killed by snake-poison ;" 

 that is to say, that not one Indian in a million would be on the 

 average benefited by the discovery (themortaUty from reputed snake- 

 bite being, as we have seen, considerably under 100 per million 

 annually). 



