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Show H oo FLU TOOK GREAT I TOLL IN INDIA. Returns from the census of the In-, I dian empire show that India has been j slowed down by disease. The Increase in the past ten years has been only j 12 per cent, a compared with ( bo tween 1901 and 1911. I One of the students of history says: I J ' Though India is a country of early I ,1 marriage, usually prolific in offspring.! Ulls 1b a lower rato of progress even ' than in France at the period of the -I greatest stagnation of Its population -rl901 to 1911 when the rate waa 1.6 i ! I( per cent In the closing decado of the I jl nineteenth century', when two great : ftjmines followed closely upon one an-I an-I other in India, the rate of increase al j lowing for a new areas, was 1.5 while In tho previous decennlum It was 9.6. h 'The key to the problem of arrested advance is tho severity with which Incite In-cite was affected by the pandemic of I lstfluenza which marked the closing jl period of the war years The scourge lift no part of India unvlsltexL The I 118 death rate was, In consequence, HJlrly double that of the previous yiiar. The direct loss of life due to I t m ravages of the disease is officially ExV'-f stated to have been 7 000,000 in Brit l$ In("11 iTne. Even apart from this' Hp ft i i deadly scourge the later years of the ! decade were unhealthy Plague, which l had been virulent in 1915 In the northern north-ern and western portions of the coiin I try, again look a heavy toll in 1f)7 and 1918. "Not only so, the general failure of the rains of 1918 caused widespread dlslress over a large part of the country', coun-try', JUid 'he mortality from cholera in 1918-1 9 ws exceptionally high "A striking feature of the returns is the evidence afforded that tho female fe-male population, always in considerable consider-able defect In India, suffered mopt from influenza visitation. This feat ure contrasts with tho repeated experience ex-perience of great famines. In which it Is the men and boys who succumb j soonest to privation. Ten years ago j the population comprised, in round fig-J ures, 161.338.000 males and 153.718.000 females The disproportion has been widened in the Interval by males contributing con-tributing 2,718,000 to tho advance reg-Istered, reg-Istered, while the female Increase is only 1,201.000 The result Is that there are 9.037.000 more males than j females in the Indian empire today.'' |