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100 Years Ago | 20 June 2019

On this day a century ago, these were some of the news items The Statesman readers got to read about India and the world.

100 Years Ago | 20 June 2019

OCCASIONAL NOTE

“The air is very moist now,” as the meteorologist general for Bengal remarks, with that capacity for exact diagnosis which has always characterised the higher walks of British scientific research; but a reference to the still higher authority which issues its daily oracles from Simla brings it home to us that the damp coolness of the conditions referred to is strictly confined to the south-eastern portion of the Gangetic plain. The further north and west we go, the less cool and damp there is to greet us, until, by the time we arrive at Jacobabad, Dera Ismail Khan and Peshawar, we find ourselves luxuriating in temperatures of 117, 114, and 113, respectively. After weighing all the conditions one feels constrained to offer the right hand of sympathy to the residents in the two latter places rather than to those in Jacobabad, albeit the temperature recorded at the last named place on Wednesday exceed theirs by three degrees and more. A temperature of 117 degrees connotes, of course, a heat which to the dwellers in Simla or even in Calcutta would appear excessive; but compare it with that of 127 degrees, the record of ten days ago, and the inevitable inference is that the Jacobabadies must, if anything, find it almost unseasonably cool. The fact that the thermometer should, even so, be five degrees above the average merely adds piquancy to a paradox which is characteristically Indian in flavour.

AN IMPERIAL BOARD OF PUBLIC HEALTH

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Sir Sankaran Nair this morning opened a conference of Medical experts which has assembled in Simla to discuss the question of the establishment of an Imperial Board of Public Health. In the course of his speech he referred to the splendid contribution of India towards various researches and the admirable work done in this connection by members of the Indian Medical Service, which had benefitted the whole world. But still there was appalling mortality in this country and the weakness of the existing oganisation was brought into relief by the influenza epidemic of last year. The time had come when a bold step was necessary, and the Government must lead the way. He invited the conference to consider the question of a central organisation, how it could coordinate the work of preventive action, clinical work and medical research, and to what extent it would advise, guide and control sanitary works in the provinces.

THE PESHAWAR PLOT

This war was caused by two happenings: The first arose out of the murder of the late Amir, the second was Mr. Gandhi’s Satyagraha movement. The latter was the cloak under which the rising in support of Amanalla’s forces was planned in Peshawar. Eventually it was discovered that the Afghan postmaster was freely distributing money in raising combatants for a lashkar, and it was arranged that if war was declared the mob in Peshawar, in common with mobs in the Punjab, should rise. On the night of the day there was a rumour that the Afghan postmaster was going to be arrested. Within a few minutes a crowd of two thousand Afghans had assembled and they were at once issued with arms which the postmaster had been collecting for some time past. How the city was surrounded and the postmaster and the ringleaders arrested is then described.

PERSONATING A C.I.D. OFFICER

Private T.E. Jones, of the 12th Special Service Battalion, was sentenced yesterday by Mr. Das Gupta, Third Presidency Magistrate, to four months’ rigorous imprisonment, on charges of personating and cheating. Accused it seems, knew R.C. Steel, a private in the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade, Bombay branch, who came to Calcutta and stayed in the house of Mrs. Blint, at Dedar Bux’s Lane. One day he (accused) called on Mrs. Blint, and introducing himself as the C.I.D. officer deputed to escort Steel, told her that Steel wanted his things and thus obtained possession of three boxes of his (Steel’s) clothing, also Rs 5. Similarly, accused called on Steel’s father and induced him to give him Rs 20 for expenses for Steel.

CAIRO-KARACHI AERIAL MAIL

ALLAHABAD, JUNE 19

A definite project for the establishment of a regular aerial mail service between Cairo and Karachi, via Baghdad, is under consideration. This service would ultimately form a link in the imperial chain, but by itself it would prove of great advantage to India. Letters for England could be despatched from this country by aeroplane as far as Cairo and thence sent to their destination by the ordinary mail. The time occupied from the time of posting to the delivery of the letter would be about ten days, which is less than is now taken by a deferred telegram to reach Englan

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