The serpent tribe in India is numerous. They actually swarm in gardens, and often intrude into the dwellings of the inhabitants, principally during the rainy season. Certainly the majority are harmless, but the bite of others is speedily fatal. The most to be dreaded is the cobra-de-capello, or hooded snake. It seldom exceeds three or four feet in length, and is about an inch and a quarter thick. The Rupelian snake—about four feet long—is another whose bite is almost instantaneous death. Sir Joseph Fraser states that no antidote has yet been discovered to cure the bite of either of these horrible reptiles.
The loss of life from snake bites in India is painful to contemplate, but the extermination of snakes is attended with grave difficulties—from their great number, the character of the country, the rapid undergrowth of the jungle; and, above all, the scruples of the majority of the people, whom caste prevents from destroying life.
Something, however, has been effected by the offer of rewards. In 1877 a total of 16,777 persons are reported as having died from snake-bites, while £811 was paid for the destruction of 127,295 snakes!
The last census of the Indian Empire shows a population of 252,451,210, and this may be accepted as a minimum, owing to the great difficulty existing in obtaining exact returns. Many of the natives evince a great reluctance at giving the true number of their family. The density of the population may be appreciated when a comparison is drawn from the following figures:—France has 180 people to the square mile, England 200, whilst in Bengal the population reaches the enormous number of 1280 persons to each cultivated square mile. The Famine Commissioners in 1880 reported that over six millions of the peasant holdings of Bengal—or two-thirds of the whole—averaged from two to three acres a-piece. Allowing for women and children, this represents a population of about 24,000,000 struggling to live off 15,000,000 acres—or just half-an-acre a-piece.
Unlike other countries, India has few large towns, and no manufacturing centres. In England, for instance, 42 per cent.—or nearly one half of the population—live in towns, with upwards of 20,000 inhabitants; whilst in India barely 4 per cent.—or not a twentieth of the people—live in towns. India is entirely a rural country.
We see, therefore, in India, a dense population of farmers. Wherever their number exceeds one to the acre—or 640 to the square mile—the struggle for existence becomes a hard task; at half-an-acre a-piece (and it is often so), that struggle is very hard indeed. When a crop fails the Government has a bad time of it to feed the starving millions. Disease and death in such periods, amongst underfed people, is simply horrible.
The opening up of lines of railway throughout this vast empire, now enables the Governments to alleviate the dreadful effects of over-population, and relieve the distress. Still, the fact remains that since the establishment of British rule in India the population has increased materially. The census of 1872 shows an increase of 240,000; the production of the soil being stationary, the future becomes problematical.
