'ANNUAL REPORT OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, FOR THE YEAR 1862-63’ [‎63v] (122/266)

APPENDIX TO JUDICIAL REPORT.
'[Bombay']
This letter having been referred to the Government Law Officers, Mi. Mesfropp,
then Acting Advocate General, recommended resort to legislation to settle the questions
pending between the Government and the Municipality.
It is in consequence of this recommendation that the piesent Bill has been prepared.
Its object is to provide for the transfer of the works to the Municipality on the terras
sanctioned by the Home Authorities and the Government of India, and to vest the charge
and maintenance, of the Works in the Municipal Commissioners, as also to give them
powers to impose wafer-rates, and to confer upon.them authority to enforce the payment
of those rates. Provision is also made for the inspection of the Works by the Govern
ment Officers, and for the manner in which Government is to proceed in the event of
the Municipal Commissioners failing to perform their duties under the Act..
This Bill was passed by the Council of the Governor of Bombay, and has been
submitted for the, assent of the Governor General.
(26) A , Bill to enlarge the Jurisdiction of the Court of Small Causes of Kurrachea, and
to Facilitate the transaction oj Business therein.
His Excellency the Governor General having declined to give his assent to the Bill
passed by the Governor in Council of Bombay for enlarging the Jurisdiction of the Small
Cause Court at Kurraehee on the grounds—(1) That the 1st Section gave to the Court
jurisdiction over principals having Agents within the jurisdiction of the Court “ not only
in respect of matters connected with the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. of such Agents, but also in respectof
other matters of such principals ’; and (2), because under the second Section affidavits
instead of being admissible in support or resistance of interlocutory motions only would
become admissible for all purposes, the present Bill has been drafted with a view to
obviate these objections while securing the advantages originally contemplated.
This Bill was passed as Act VIII. of 1863.
(2/) A Bill for taking a Census of the Bombay Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. .,
Attempts at a computation of the population of Bombay have been made at several
times from a.d. 1716, when the inhabitants were roughly estimated at 16,000, down to
1849 and 1851, when the numbers had increased to upwards of half a million. But
little confidence, however, can be placed on any of these estimates ; even the last and most
carefully planned scheme of enumeration having failed from several causes, which are
only to be obviated by.an Act settling the principle upon which the Census is to proceed,
and enforcing by the requisite sanctions promptness and good faith in furnishing the
separate Returns, on the conectness of which the value of the general results must almo-t
wholly depend.
The interest which formerly attached to this subject has been greatly increased of
Ipte years by the beneficial uses to which sanitary statistics have in the hands of scien-
ticpiysicians been applied in the discovery and elimination of the removable sources
of disease, from which flows a great portion of the mortality in every large city. Such
s a is ICS ave m "mope become the basis of important and successful measures for
promoting the general health and physical well-being of all classes of the urban popula-
on. Their value was not overlooked in Bombay, and in lb 4 9 a system of Mortuary
egis 1 a ion was introduced, which has been working with marked success ever since.
. las placed at the disposal of Government, a mass of important and useful information