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must number annually some 4,000 to 5,000 persons exclusive of the
cold weather labourers.
The total yearly immigration to the tea gardens from the hills and
plains together cannot, we believe, be less than 12,000 persons; and in
some years it is probably very greatly in excess of this number. Thus
in 1907-08, in coolie lines examined by us with a view to ascertaining
the proportion of new coolies, we found these to form between ten to
fifty per cent of the whole and an ave age of twenty-five per cent.
of the whole seemed to be very general throughout the district. This
would give the extraordinarily high figure of an annual influx of
over 30,000 persons-men, women and children-which is, we believe,
nearer the truth than our minimum calculation.
These figure assume great significance when we remember that the
Duars is by no means a very large tract. And, when we compare the
annual influx into Assam, it is at once apparent that immigration into
the tea gardens of the Duars, which totals some 80,000 acres under tea,
is at present relatively greatly in excess of that into the tea districts of
Assam which has an area under tea four times as great.
It is necessary to follow out in some detail the actual conditions
associated with this annual influx of strangers.
CONDITION OF NEW ARRIVALS As REGARDS MALARIA.
Examination of coolies entering the Duars shows that the great
majority are free from malaria. This point is well illustrated in the
following examples:-
Among 60 adults 14 children and 5 infants who had come up
from part of Chota Nagpur not one had an enlarged spleen,
nor did the examination of their blood show parasites.
The blood of the babies and children also was normal and
offered a remarkable contrast to that of children of a
similar age resident some time in the Duars.
Among three hundred coolies recruited in a single year from
the Santal pargannas and Singhbhum, examination of the