§ MR. DAVITTI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will state from the statistics of the Local Government Gazette of the Central Provinces of India the death rate in those provinces for the six months of the year ending 31st December 1895, and for the year ending 31st December 1896, and the total number of deaths in each of these two periods, giving each number separately?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE. HAMILTON,) Middlesex, EalingThe Central Provinces Gazette does not give the full monthly vital statistics for any month later than September 1896, but the figures for the periods of three months ending September 1895, and September 1896, respectively are as follows:—Mean of monthly death rates, July to September 1895, 43.12 per mille: mean of monthly death rates, July to September 1896,55.80 per mille; total number of deaths, July to September 1895,102,420; total number of deaths, July to September 1896, 132,552. These provinces were visited by a severe epidemic of cholera in the spring and summer which caused a heavy and general rise in the number of deaths in the summer and 1556 early autumn. Though I have no complete summary of the death rate of the whole province for the later months, the Chief Commissioner informed me some time back that in the division of Jubbalpore, where the distress was acute, there was a continuous fall in the mortality during October and November.