An insanitary capital

THE insanitary condition of Lahore, both the city and the civil station, is a standing disgrace to those responsible for its administration and a standing menace to the health, happiness and lives of its citizens. During the last few weeks, the death rate has been steadily on the rise, and what is even more important, some of the worst and most debilitating diseases have been widely prevalent, in some cases in an epidemic form. In addition to a large number of cases of small pox, chicken pox and measles, there have been numerous cases of fever, including those of pneumonia and typhoid, while there probably also have been a few cases of plague. Nor have cases of cholera been altogether wanting. As regards tuberculosis, there is reason to fear that it is permanently on the increase. In any other country, perhaps in any other province even in our own country, a condition of things like this, vitally affecting the people of the capital city, would have evoked the keenest and most energetic interest, and those responsible for the health and sanitation of the city would have known no rest until the most active and determined steps had been taken to combat the cause or causes. It reflects little credit either on our city fathers or on the government, which cannot divest itself of its share of responsibility in this matter, or on the citizens themselves, that this thoroughly discreditable order of things is accepted more or less as part of the divine dispensation which man is only fated to endure and which he can do nothing to remedy.