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5, or 6.6 per cent; daily average strength, 75'11; daily average sick, 3°23. So far as possible, the lunatics are employed in gardening. The Barhampur asylum was first opened towards the close of 1874, and was to a great extent occupied by patients transferred from Dalanda and Patná. It is capable of accommodating 230 patients. During the few months of 1874 that it was open, the statistics were: Total treated, 118; cured, nil; transferred to friends, 1; died, 6; daily average strength, 823; daily average sick, 6. In explanation of the comparatively large number of deaths, it is stated that all the patients who died were, with one exception, over forty years of age; and that half died within a month after arrival in the asylum.

CATTLE DISEASES.-Murshidábád District is liable to be visited frequently and severely by various forms of cattle disease; but, apparently, not to a greater extent than the neighbouring Districts. There is no accurate record preserved of these several visitations, nor of the mortality caused by them. The Cattle Plague Commissioners of 1870 visited several villages in the District, and received universal testimony that frequent outbreaks of the disease called mátá basanta or guti prevailed. This disease is a species of cattle small-pox, identified by the Commissioners with the rinderpest of Europe, and generally terminates fatally, as no remedial measures are adopted. The symptoms are thus described :-Dry muzzle ; discharge from eyes and nose; ears drooping; miliary eruptions all over the body; eyes oedematous; excoriation of gums and floor of mouth; cough; loss of appetite, with difficulty in swallowing; offensive breath; purging of blood and mucus. The eruptions and the purging commence on about the third or fourth day; and the cattle die from the third to the fifteenth day. The disease is admitted to be contagious, but segregation, as a preventive measure, is altogether beyond the abilities of the rayats. In one village visited by the Commissioners, out of 112 cattle, 66 had been attacked, and 56 died, as well as 5 or 6 sheep. One of the informants, a village mandal aged ninety years, stated that he had seen the disease four times in his life, of which the first occasion was when he was ten years old. It was said to occur most commonly in February and March. In some villages the disease was called dákráj, but more usually basanta. The Commissioners print a return, from which it appears that between 14th June and 5th December 1870, in 95 villages, 2205 cattle were attacked, and 1441 or 653 died. A

second disease called khurá, to be identified with foot-and-mouth disease, was also stated to be of common occurrence; but it very rarely proves fatal. I gather from another source that there was an outbreak of cattle-murrain in the spring of 1864, shortly after the Alípur exhibition, and that on this occasion the Nawáb Názím lost several valuable animals.

Considerable interest is attached to the first recorded outbreak of mátá or rinderpest at Murshidábád in 1832, from the circumstance that it was attempted at that time to find in the pustules which covered the diseased cattle a substitute for vaccine lymph. Dr. Macpherson, then Superintendent of Vaccination at Murshidábád, apparently relying upon the circumstance that the natives applied to the disease among the cattle the same term which they used for human small-pox, determined that it could be nothing else than natural cow-pox. He selected some cows suffering under the malady, clothed them in blankets, and removing the crusts which he found developed on the udder on the ninth and tenth days of the disease, used these to vaccinate children, and succeeded in producing a vesicle, to all appearance vaccine. From the vesicle so created, lymph was taken, sent all over India, and used for vaccination. This discovery took the medical men of India by surprise, and produced no little agitation at the time. Efforts were made elsewhere to imitate Dr. Macpherson's practice, until the disastrous results that followed upon the experiments in Sylhet overthrew the entire hypothesis on which it was founded.

FAMILY HISTORY OF THE SETHS OF MURSHIDABAD.-In some of my Accounts of other Districts, there have been given brief sketches of the family history of the leading landowners. In Murshidábád, the banking house of Jagat Seth occupies a position of hereditary dignity superior to that of any zamíndár; and its history is connected with some of the most critical revolutions in Bengal, both during the Muhammadan and English rule. The Seths have been not unworthily called the Rothschilds of India,' and Burke said of them that their transactions were as extensive as those of the Bank of England.' The following paragraphs are partly based upon materials supplied by the present representative of the family, through the intervention of Rájá Prasanna Náráyan Deb Bahadur, the Nizámat Díwán of the Nawab. It must, however, be recollected, that all the original family papers are said to have been destroyed by a fire in the beginning of the present century.

The Seths do not trace their antiquity further back than for about two hundred years. They are of Rájput descent, belonging to the well-known tribe of Márwárís, the Jews of India, as they have been called, whose hereditary enterprise carries them as traders to every part of the country. Like their tribe-fellows, they were originally Jains, of the Svetámbara sect, and some of them have been munificent donors to the temples on Párasnáth hill. (See the Statistical Account of Hazáribágh District, vol. xvi. pp. 223-227.) The original home of the family is said to have been at Nagar, a town of some importance in the Rájput State of Jodhpur. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, Hirá-nand Saho, to whom the Seths refer their ancestry, migrated from his native city in search of wealth, as so many Rájput and Hindustání families have done. He settled at Patná, which was then the second greatest emporium in the lower valley of the Ganges, and the site of factories of the Portuguese, Dutch, and English. To Hirá-nand Saho were born seven sons, who seem to have all followed their father's profession, and established banking firms in different parts of India. The eldest of the seven, Mánik Chand, who betook himself to Dacca, is regarded as the founder of the Seth family. Dacca was at that time the seat of the Muhammadan Government, and the natural centre of attraction to an enterprising man. When Murshid Kulí Khán, in 1704, transferred the capital to Murshidábád, the banker followed his patron, and became the most influential personage at the new court. It would seem that Mánik Chand was the right-hand man of the Nawáb in all his financial reforms, and also in his private affairs. The establishment of the mint at Murshidábád, by which the city was conspicuously marked as the new capital of Bengal, was rendered easy by the command of specie possessed by the banker. The same qualification perhaps suggested, as it certainly facilitated, the fundamental change introduced by Murshid Kulí Khán, in accordance with which the zamindárs, or other collectors of revenue, paid the land tax by monthly instalments at Murshidábád. These payments passed through the hands of Mánik Chand, and it was through him also that the annual revenue of one kror and fifty lákhs of rupees (£1,500,000) was annually remitted to the Mughul Emperor; whether in specie, as stated by Stewart (History of Bengal, p. 238), or in drafts and orders, drawn by Mánik Chand on the corresponding firm of his brother in Dehli, as is suggested in the family history. The coffers of Mánik Chand were, moreover, the depositary of the

private hoards of the Nawáb; and on the death of the latter, it is said that five krors of rupees remained yet unpaid. Under these circumstances, it is easy to believe that the influence of the banker became almost as great as that of the Governor. On the one hand, Murshid Kulí Khán is said to have obtained for Mánik Chand the title of 'Seth' or banker from the Emperor Farrukh-Siyyar, in 1715. While, on the other hand, it is asserted in the family history that Mánik Chand had previously helped Murshid Kulí to purchase the continuance of his office of Nawab of Bengal, after the death of Aurangzeb.' It is at least certain that from this time the banker and his descendants were recognised as permanent members of the Nawab's Council, that their influence was of chief importance in deciding the result of every dynastic revolution, and that they were always in constant communication with the ministers of the Dehli Court.

Mánik Chand had no children, and he resolved to adopt his nephew Fathi Chand, the head of the firm at Dehli, who had also received the title of Seth. The latter was in high favour with the Emperor Farrukh-Siyyar, who lay under heavy pecuniary obligations to the firm. Mánik Chand died full of wealth and honours, in 1722; and his adopted son at once took his position as the richest banker in India, and the most influential man in matters of finance. On the occasion of his first visit to Dehli, the Emperor Muhammad Sháh conferred on him the title of 'Jagat Seth,' or 'the banker of the world.' This occurrence took place in 1724. According to another account, this title was granted by Farrukh-Siyyar; but it is admitted by all that Fathi Chand was the first of the family to bear the name of Jagat Seth, which has since become so well known in history. The family chronicle proceeds to state that 'he was held in such honour at court, that it was proposed to supersede Murshid Kulí Khán, who then lay under the imperial displeasure, and to appoint Fathi Chand to the Government of Bengal. But the banker refused to occupy the post that was filled by the great patron of his family, and by means of his friendly offices procured a pardon for the Nawáb. In the farmán issued on this occasion, it was expressly stated that the imperial grace was only exercised in consideration for the earnest prayers of Fathi Chand, with whom the Nawáb was instructed to consult henceforward on all matters of State.' The Court favour towards Fathi Chand's family was hereditary. A khilát was never sent to the Názím

of Bengal, without a similar favour being conferred on Jagat Seth. A fine emerald seal was for many years preserved in the family, as a present from the Emperor, engraved with the title of jagat seth.

On the death of Murshid Kulí Khán in 1725, the new Nawab, Shujá-ud-Daulá, appointed Fathi Chand to be one of his four Councillors of State, and seems to have submitted to his advice during all the fourteen years of his peaceful rule. On the accession of Sarfaraz Khán in 1739, the banker retained his position in the Council; but the voluptuous passions of the Nawab led to a rupture, which is thus described in Orme's History of British India :1— 'There was a family of Gentoo merchants at Muxadavad, whose head, Juggut-Seat, had raised himself from no considerable origin to be the wealthiest banker in the empire, in most parts of which he had agents supplied with money for remittances, from whom he constantly received good intelligence of what was transacting in the governments in which they were settled. In Bengal his influence was equal to that of any officer of the administration; for by answering to the treasury as security for most of the renters farming the lands of the province, he knew better than any one all the details of the revenues; while the great circulation of wealth which he commanded rendered his assistance necessary in every emergency of expense. His eldest son was married to a woman of exquisite beauty, the report alone of which inflamed the curiosity of the Nawab so much, that he insisted on seeing her, although he knew the disgrace which would be fixed on the family by showing a wife unveiled to a stranger. Neither the remonstrances of the father, nor his power to avenge the indignity, availed to divert the Nabob from this insolent and futile resolution. The young woman was sent to the palace in the evening, and after staying there a short space, returned, unviolated indeed, but dishonoured, to her husband.' Such is the cause commonly assigned to account for the fact that Jagat Seth fell away from the Nawáb Sarfaráz Khán, the last heir of the great Murshid Kulí Khán, the patron of his family, and joined himself to the adventurer Alí Vardí Khán. But the Seth family give another explanation, which they regard as more honourable to their ancestor. They say that Murshid Kulí Khán had, in the course of business, deposited with Mánik Chand a sum of seven krors of rupees, which had never been 1 Madras Reprint, 1861, vol. ii. pp. 29, 30.