Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1877 — Deaths from Wild Animals and Snakes In India. [ARTICLE]

Deaths from Wild Animals and Snakes In India.

Returns have reached ua from India showing the numbers killed in the year 1875 by wildbeastsand by snake-bitea. It seems that between the 31st of December, 1874, and the Ist of January, 1876, in our Indian Empire, no fewer than 21,391 persons and 48,234 head of cattle perisued from these causes, such was the war of savage Nature against man. On the other hand, there were destroyed 22,357 wild animals of all kinds, ana 270,185 snakes, at a cost to the Government of 120,015 rupees; or, without taking into account the depreciation in the value of silver, something like £12,000. We are further told that ti. 6 losses havo been to a great extent tabulated, and that, from the returns which have been sent in, it has been found that elephants have killed 61 human beings and 6 cattle; tigers respectively 828 and 12,423; leopards, 187 and 10.157; hears. 84 and 529; wolves, 1,060 and 9,407; hyenas, 68 and 2,116; while to “other animals” arc ascribed the totals of 1,446 and 4,401. These other animals are not described with any minuteness, and we are consequently left to conjecture for ourselves what they are, and how they may have inflicted the mischief laid to their charge. The first thing that strikes us as we look through the figures is the wide apparent difference between the mortality in the vail jus districts. Bengal shows by far the largest number of victims, as it lost 10,914 souls, while only 3,933 persons were killed in the Northwest Principality, 1,730 in Oude, 1,536 in Madras, 1,070 in Bombay, 732 in Punjaub, 517 in tire Central Provinces and 420 in Assam.

It is a significant fact that the number of deaths due to snake-bites exceeds that from all other causes. It amounts to no fewer than 17,070, or, in other words, something like fifty persons perish every day in India from snake-bites alone. The great majority of the victims are ot course natives', who go about barefooted. The Hindoo woman is making her way to the well or to the river with her pitcher on her head: the groom is cutting fresh grass; the gardener is plucking flowers with *which to decorate the room, or the messenger is running by a short cut across the fields with a note. Any of these may at any moment tread upon a cobra; and, although the cobra is not aggressive, it will turn, when attacked or imagines that it is threatened, with the rapidity of lightning. A sharp, short sting is felt, and the sufferer sees the loathsome rep.ile clinging to his foot or ankle, for the fangs of the cobra strike so deep that it is often unable to diseugage itself. The hrute is shaken off, but the nearest doctor is probably ten, twelve, or even twenty miles away. No remedies are at hand, there is no knife for excision, no caustic or hot iron for cautery; and before a few hours have elapsed death has set in. The only way to prevent this terrible mortality is by killing cobras wholesale, and this again can only be done by offering a small reward per head for their destruction. Unfortunately, the heathen Hindoo, like the heathen Chinee, is peculiar, not to say bigoted, in his ways, and whilfe a vast number of the people will not even put the most venomous “nag” to death, those who have no such scruples are clever at devices whereby to defraud the Government. The customary reward has consequently been withdrawn, and the result, as we are told, and can easily believe, is that the mortality from snake-bites has increased to a very alarming extent. It is also asserted, rightly or wrongly, that the deaths ascribed to the large animals would be much fewer in number if the natives were allowed the free use of fowling-pieces, at any rate, if not of rifles. There are reasons, no doubt why in certain parts of the country it is expedient that tire native population, or a certain portion of it, should be disarmed. On the other hand, it is clear that wolves, hyenas, leopards, tigers and other such beasts of prey cannot be kept in check unless they are shot down, and That traps, pitfalls, baits of poisoned fish and similar devices are practically of little avail as compared with an explosive bullet from a well-sighted rifle. As against snakes, to take the other side of the question, his arms are not of much use. A snake can be safely attacked with an ordinary walk-ing-stick by any one who knows its ways, and, if a sufficient reward were offered, India could, in process of time, be largely cleared of snakes, as England was cleared of wolves by similar means. It would, no doubt, be rather an expensive remedy; hut if a local rate were levied for the purpose, it would greatly benefit the district thus taxed, while the money would return eventually into the pockets 4r-if they have any—of those among the inhabitants who were enterprising enough to earn the premium. —London Telegraph.