PLACES OF INTEREST

KURLA.

Kurla in Salsette, a station on the Peninsula railway ten miles north-east of Bombay, is with six other villages, Mohili, Kolikalyan, Marol, Shahar, Asalpe, and Parjapur, the property of Mr. Ardeshir Hormasji Wadia, a Parsi merchant of Bombay, who pays for them a yearly quit-rent of £358 (Rs. 3587). The villages were originally given, in 1808, to Mr. Hormasji Bamanji Wadia in exchange for a piece of land near the Apollo pier gate in Bombay. The difference between the value of the villages and of the ground in Bombay, £864 (Rs. 8640), was at first paid yearly to Government. It was redeemed and the estate conveyed in fee simple in 1840-41. Kurla has two cotton mills, one of them, the Dharamsi Punjabhai being the largest cotton spinning and weaving mill in the Presidency, with 92,094 spindles and 1280 looms and a capital of £600,000 (Rs. 60,00,000). It employs about 3550 workmen and pays in wages about £40,000 (Rs. 4,00,000) a year. The other is the Kurla Spinning and Weaving Mill with a capital of £130,000 (Rs. 13,00,000). The village has a population of 9715, about half of them mill-hands, the rest chiefly fishers, husbandmen, and salt-makers. The Christians, who number about 1500, have a church of the Holy Cross, built during Portuguese rule and rebuilt in 1848. It measures 125 feet long, forty-seven broad, and forty-five high. It is in good order and has a vicarage attached, with a vicar who has a monthly Government allowance of £1 (Rs. 10). Attached to the church is a school, with an average attendance of thirty-three boys who are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, Christian doctrine, and music. The master plays the violin in church. The owner of the village, Mr. Ardeshir Hormasji Wadia, contributes 12s. (Rs. 6) a month to the expense of the school. On a small hill, about ten minutes' walk from the church, is a cross believed to have miraculous power. The municipality, which was started in 1878, had, in 1880-81, an income of £325 (Rs.3248) from house, mill, and lime kiln taxes, representing a taxation of 8d. (5 annas 4 pies) a head. The expenditure during the same year was £213 (Rs. 2135), of which £126 (Rs. 1257) went in scavenging. The station traffic returns show an increase in passengers from 162,268 in 1872 to 336,898 in 1880, and in goods from 594 to 8973 tons.

The Mithibai Hormasji Wadia Dispensary was built by Mr. Bamanji Hormasji Wadia in 1855, and endowed by him with £1200 (Rs. 12,000). It is in charge of an assistant surgeon, and, in 1880-81, had an attendance of 7367 out-patients. The salt pans cover an area of about 66 acres and yield a yearly revenue of £3418 (Rs. 34,180). There is also a considerable manufacture of shell lime. Kurla is connected with Sion on Bombay island by the Sion causeway, which bears the following inscription: ' This causeway was begun in May 1798 and was finished in January 1805, during the administration of the Honourable Jonathan Duncan Esquire. It cost £5037 (Rs. 50,374). It was doubled in width, and other improvements added, in 1826, under the government of the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone, at a further cost of £4000 (Rs. 40,000). The causeway was originally constructed under the superintendence of Captain William Brooks of the Engineers, and the additions and improvements made in 1826 under that of Captain William Tate of the same corps.'

Kurla was a place of some consequence under the Portuguese, and, after their overthrow by the Marathas (1740), became the seat of the native Vicar General of Salsette.