338 PLAGUE IN INDIA. 



helping hand of the State to provide new sites. At one time I held that 

 a progressive change of the village site to a clean soil, along with the 

 break-up of a larger village into several hamlets, would be an effectual 

 if very slow means of getting rid of plague. But after seeing a good 

 many of those dreadful mud villages I have come to think that it is 

 their miserable structure that is the real reason Avhy the Indian plains 

 are cursed with plague, and that there can be no real cure without a 

 more civilized kind of dwelling and a great revival of the native 

 building arts as village industries. 



