ed 32 or 33 per 1000, or more than double that of
England. The infantile mortality is enormous, and one out of every four
or five children fails to survive its first year. The death-rate in the
N.W.F. Province was 27 per 1000 in 1910. In the ten years ending 1910
plague pushed up the average death-rate in the Panjab to 43-1/2 per
1000. Even now malarial fever is a far worse foe than plague. The
average annual deaths in the ten years ending 1910 were:

Fevers 450,376
Plague 202,522
Other diseases 231,473
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Total 884,371
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Fever is very rife in October and November, and these are the most
unhealthy months in the year, March and April being the best. The
variations under fevers and plague from year to year are enormous. In
1907 the latter claimed 608,685 victims, and the provincial death-rate
reached the appalling figure of 61 per 1000. Next year the plague
mortality dropped to 30,708, but there were 697,058 deaths from fever.
There is unfortunately no reason to believe that plague has spent its
force or that the people as a whole will in the near future generally
accept the protective measures of inoculation and evacuation.
Vaccination, the prejudice against which has largely disappeared, has
robbed the small-pox goddess of many offerings. As a general cause of
mortality the effect of cholera in the Panjab is now insignificant. But
it is still to be feared in the Kashmir valley, especially in the
picturesque but filthy summer capital. Syphilis is very common in the
hill country in the north-east of the province. Blindness and leprosy
are both markedly on the decrease. Both infirmities are common in
Kashmir, especially the former. The rigours of the climate in a large
part of the State force the people to live day and night for the seven
winter months almost entirely in dark and smoky huts, and it is small
wonder that their eyesight is ruined.

~Occupations.~--The Panjab is preeminently an agricultural country, and
the same is true in an almost greater degree of the N.W.F. Province and
Kashmir. The typical holding is that of the small landowner tilling from
3 to 10 acres with his own hands with or without help from village
menials. The tenant class is increasing, but there are still three
owners to two tenants. Together they make up 50 p.c. of the population
of the Panjab, and 5 p.c. is added for farm labourer