HC Deb 14 August 1882 vol 273 cc1690-1
MR. O'DONNELL

asked the Secretary of State for India, With reference to the passage in his Despatch of the 25th May 1882, to Lord Ripon, that he has been — Much impressed by the statement contained in the Bengal Gaol Report for 1879 that a heavy mortality was going on month after month without the attention of Government being called to it; if he is in a position to inform the House who were the responsible authorities who failed to call the attention of Government to the heavy mortality; and, also, how long the heavy mortality had continued before any inquiries were made by the Bengal Government as to the condition of the Bengal Gaols?

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

Sir, Dr. Lethbridge's statement in the Bengal Gaol Report for 1879 was as follows:— Superintendents were asked to watch the effect of the new scale very closely, and to report any tendency to sickness. I regret to say that no important Reports on this point were received during the nine months that the diet was in use. It would be the duty of the medical officers of the different gaols to send in monthly Returns of sickness and mortality to the Inspector General of Prisons, by whom the Returns are tabulated at the end of the year and laid before Government. It is, no doubt, difficult to draw any correct inference from these Returns without first getting a number of them together, for a gaol that showed a very high mortality in one month, might show a very low mortality in the next. When the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, in his Resolution on the port for 1879, adverted to the absence of reference to the effect of the diet scale in the medical Reports, he admitted that the effect was probably not noticeable by anyone who was constantly with the prisoners. The Inspector General of Prisons appears to have been first led to the opinion that the diet was at fault during his inspection of the gaols of Northern Bengal in February and March, 1880. When he returned to Calcutta, and consulted the statistics for 1879, which had just been prepared, and which showed a high rate of mortality, he reported the matter to the Government of Bengal. The arrangements which have been repeatedly explained to the House were then immediately made. In view of these facts, and of the opinion of the Government of India that it is not proved that the mortality was due to insufficiency of food, I cannot say that there is sufficient evidence before me to convince me that the prison authorities were guilty of neglect of duty.