OCCASIONAL NOTE

It is satisfactory to find that Lord Ronaldshay is anxious to take up in earnest a campaign against the hookworm disease, which is probably the most widely diffused of human maladies and, in its aggregate effects, the most mischievous. The evidence of its prevalence is so remarkable that the average man refuses to consider the matter seriously. He is disposed to argue that a disease so widespread cannot affect the health to any large extent. As the hilsa fish is the host of tapeworm, and as meat often contains cysts which medical authorities have pronounced harmless, so man is the host of the hookworm.

But, whatever may be the truth regarding the hilsa and meat, there is no shadow of a doubt that the hookworm has a most baneful effect on the health of man. In the Southern States of America a campaign against this pest has restored a large population to health and vigour, a population previously marked by a listlessness which rendered all work disagreeable.

It is quite conceivable that the “born-tired” look which one sees on so many faces in rural Bengal is due not to malaria or over work but to a debilitating parasite whose presence is a continual, though unsuspected, drain on the energy of its host. Already great results have been achieved in Assam by the liberation of coolies from this insidious foe. The Presidency of Bengal has been shown to have a degree of infection amounting to 71 per cent of the population. This is the question which Lord Ronaldshay puts to Mr. Stevenson- Moore, as chairman of the Sanitary Board.

ALIGARH COLLEGE DISPUTE 

A special meeting of the trustees of the Aligarh College was held on the 22nd inst. and was attended by about seventy trustees from all parts of India. A committee consisting of Nawab Sir Fayyaz Alikhan (president) the Hon. Raja of Mahmudabad, Prince Hamidullah Khan of Bhopal, Sir Ali Imam, Mr. Hassan Imam, Nawab Sir Shamsul Huda, and Mr. Hydari of Hyderabad was unanimously appointed to deal with the questions involved. After long and careful deliberation the question of Mr. Cage’s increment and resignation and other questions before the meeting were satisfactorily decided. The trustees have also appointed a committee to make suggestions regarding the revision of the rules and regulations, and to investigate matters arising out of the interviews granted to the staff.

PERSONATING A POLICE OFFICER 

Mr. J.C. Adam delivered judgment today in the case in which Inspector Kar imulah of the C.I.D. charged Mahusuk Hussan, formerly employed as an Urdu translator in the Postal Censor’s Office, Madras, with having personated a police officer and thereby collected certain sums of money from merchants. His Worship found the accused guilty on two charges of cheating and false personation as a C.I.D. officer, but observed that there were certain considerations which led him to deal leniently with him. Accused had paid back money which he received from prosecution witnesses, which showed that he might have intended to pay back all the money when he received it. His intense loyalty was testified to by the Deputy Censor, and he had a long record of service in the army. His Worship sentenced accused to one months’ rigorous imprisonment in each case, the sentences to run consecutively.

MR. THOMSON S SPEECH ON THE PRESS ACT 

It will be remembered that during the debate on the Press Act resolution in the Imperial Legislative Council the Hon. Mr. J.P. Thomson is reported to have said in the course of his speech that the editor and proprietor of the Observer were interviewed, and that the editor had the amazing effrontery to offer to turn his rag into a pro-Government organ on condition that his son was given an appointment by the Munitions Board. Mr. Barkat Ali, late editor of the Observer has since contradicted the statement of Mr. Thomson in the course of a letter to the Tr ibune describing it as utterly unfounded. Mr. Thomson has now sent a telegram to the Tribune to the following effect: Malik Barkat Ali’s letter in your issue of September 22nd. Regret the passage quoted from my speech in the second paragraph is incorrectly reported. Read “proprietor” for “editor” and “contract” for “an appointment.”