You can always come close to foretelling how many suicides will
occur in Paris, London, and New York, next year, and also how many deaths
will result from cancer, consumption, dog-bite, falling out of the
window, getting run over by cabs, etc., if you know the statistics of
those matters for the present year. In the same way, with one year's
Indian statistics before you, you can guess closely at how many people
were killed in that Empire by tigers during the previous year, and the
year before that, and the year before that, and at how many were killed
in each of those years by bears, how many by wolves, and how many by
snakes; and you can also guess closely at how many people are going to be
killed each year for the coming five years by each of those agencies.
You can also guess closely at how many of each agency the government is
going to kill each year for the next five years.
I have before me statistics covering a period of six consecutive years.
By these, I know that in India the tiger kills something over 800 persons
every year, and that the government responds by killing about double as
many tigers every year.
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