§ MR. O'DONNELLasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether he has passed any censure upon the Government of Bengal for the enormous number of floggings, numbering 8,292 in 1879, and 3,386 in the first six months of 1880, inflicted upon prisoners suffering from the dietary scales enforced during these periods; whether he will lay upon the Table of this House a copy of such censure; whether he will also cause a Report to be laid upon the Table of this House of the number of prisoners flogged for non-performance of penal task work while subject to said dietary scales who subsequently died in prison from dysentery, diarrhea, anæmia, and various forms of starvation diseases; and, whether he will provide that such Report is compiled under independent and impartial supervision?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONSir, a marked decrease has taken place in the number of corporal punishments inflicted on prisoners in the Bengal gaols since 1879. In that year it was 8,232; in the first half of 1880 it was 3,386; in the second half of 1880 it was 1,268. In the first quarter of the present year only 284 prisoners were punished with stripes, and a further proportionate decrease is expected during the remaining months of the year. This great decrease is, no doubt, in a great 219 measure due to the implicit directions given by the Lieutenant Governor in his resolution on the Report of 1879, that this form of punishment should be restricted to the most serious cases; since then, however, I am sorry to say we find that the number of gaol offences greatly increased during the same period. In 1880 the number of offences per cent of prisoners passing through the gaols was 114.6 compared with 88 in the previous year. There will be no objection to lay on the Table of the House the ordinary Administration Report of the Gaol Department for 1880. This Report contains, among other things, statistics as to the offences committed by convicts, the punishments inflicted on them, and the causes of the deaths throughout the various prisons. It does not give these statistics, however, in the form specified by the hon. Member, as it does not show the punishments inflicted for particular forms of offences, nor does it show the death-rate among those of the prisoners who were punished. This matter, like the mortality in Indian gaols, is under consideration by a Special Committee of the Indian Council; and the question whether further statistics should be called for from the Government of India will, no doubt, receive their attention.