per village, 146; houses per square mile, 72·7; inmates per house, 5·8. This Sub-division includes the 3 police circles (thánás) of Purí, Gop, and Pipplí. In 1883 it contained 1 civil and 5 magisterial courts; with a regular police force numbering 311 officers and men, and a village watch or rural police 1638 strong.
Purí (commonly known as Jagannáth).—Chief town of Purí District, Bengal; situated on the coast, in lat. 19° 48′ 17″ N., and long. 85° 51′ 39″ E., separated from the sea by low sandy ridges. In 1825, according to Stirling, it contained 5741 houses. In 1841 the houses numbered 6620, inhabited by 23,766 persons. The Census of 1872 disclosed a population of 22,695, of whom 12,077 were males and 10,618 females. In 1881 the population was returned at 22,095, namely, males 11,769, and females 10,326. Municipal income (1883—84), £1927. The number of Hindus in 1881 was 21,913; of Muhammadans, 181; and ‘other,’ 1. This is the ordinary resident population, but during the great festivals of Jagannáth the number is sometimes swollen by as many as a hundred thousand pilgrims.
Purí covers an area of 1837 acres, including the whole kshetra or sacred precincts of the town. It is a city of lodging-houses, being destitute alike of manufacturers or commerce on any considerable scale. The streets are mean and narrow, with the exception of the principal avenue, which leads from the temple to the country-house of Jagannáth. The houses are built of wattle covered in clay, raised on platforms of hard mud, about 4 feet high, and many of them gaily painted with Hindu gods, or with scenes from the Sanskrit epics. The intervening sandhills between the town and the beach intercept the drainage, and aggravate the diseases to which the overcrowding of the pilgrims gives rise.
The sanitary measures which have been taken for the improvement of the town are of three kinds,—the first directed to lessen the number of pilgrims; the second, to mitigate the dangers of the road; and the third, to prevent epidemics in the town. In seasons of cholera or other great calamity in Orissa, it would be possible to check the pilgrim stream, by giving warning in the Government Gazette, and through the medium of the vernacular papers. This was done in the famine year 1866, and native opinion supported the action of Government. But such interference is resorted to only under extreme circumstances. The second set of preventative measures can be applied with greater ease, and with more certain results. Thousands of pilgrims die annually upon the journey from exhaustion and want of food, nor does it seem possible to lessen the number of deaths from these causes. Within the last twenty years, pilgrim hospitals have been opened along the main lines of road, and a medical patrol has been, through the energy and devotion of the Civil Surgeon of Purí, established in the vicinity of the
