157 



Though we are exposed to a horrible death, causing a 

 mortality amongst us ten times greater than that caused 

 by snake-bite, and perhaps twenty times greater if we 

 exclude accidents from imprudence, yet we take no heed 

 of the obvious and preventible danger, reserving all our 

 zeal for the comparatively insignificant and perfectly un- 

 preventible danger caused by the presence of snakes in the 

 land. 



The time, thought, and money wasted on the chimerical 

 endeavour to reduce the mortality from snake-bite would 

 be better employed in diminishing the deaths from pre- 

 ventible disease. While it is authoritatively owned that 

 a million of lives could be annually saved by placing 

 quinine within reach of the whole Indian population, I 

 am at a loss to imagine how any one can obtain the ear of 

 Government to such a trifle as the mortality from snake- 

 bite. But the subject is a sensational one and there is 

 more rejoicing over a dubious case of cobra-bite recovered 

 than over a diminution of death-rate signifying a hundred 

 thousand lives saved. As long as Englishmen in India 

 wear their feet shod and their legs clothed the risk of 

 death from snake-bite is small indeed. I may thus exem- 

 plify it: — An Insurance Company could aflford to pay 

 £1,000 in case of accidental death from snake-bite, for an 

 annual premium of one penny from each English person 



would be easier than to exterminate the breed were the measure 

 vigorously carried out directly by destruction and indirectly by a 

 license-tax, yet any one can see that the rewards paid for dog-kUling 

 are perfectly wasted and that the system is too often one of time 

 honoured peculation. If there is practically such difficulty in keeping 

 down the number of these animals, every one of which is bred 

 amongst the habitations of men, how much more difficult must it be 

 to effect any appreciable diminution in the case of animals which 

 swarm in the country without attracting observation and are entirely 

 independent of man. 



