(2)
The recommendations made by the Committee, after very careful enquiry, might, it is suggested, be tried experimentally, under the close supervision of the Medical Officer and the Visiting Justices, before they are finally adopted.
GAOL REGULATIONS.
The code of Gaol laws now in force consists of the Gaol Ordinance, No. 4 of 1863, the Penal Servitude Ordinance, No. 10 of 1858, and the involved and confused body of Regulations drawn up as long ago as 1857, and amended and altered by Orders of Various Governors.
These Ordinances and the Regulations are in many points contradictory.
The Committee have revised and drawn up the Regulations anew, preserving as much of the old materials as seem to be suitable, but re-arranging them under heads of cognate subjects, and incorporating such portions of the Prisons Act of 1865, the Singapore Ordinance recently prepared by the late Mr. Brere, and Captain Innes, R.E., and of the Rules found in the Appendix to the Lords' Report, as seem likely to be of use in this Colony.
The number of the proposed Regulations is somewhat increased, but principally by sub-division. The Committee have avoided too minute directions which might tend to embarrass an intelligent Superintendent.
DIETARY.
EUROPEAN PRISONERS.
The diet is abundant in quantity and good in quality.
They have 3 meals a day provided in the form of rations in the proportions set out in the scale.
On a previous enquiry, some soldiers described the food they received in Gaol as rather better than what they got in Barracks, or at any rate not worse.
A sailor lately informed one of the present Committee, that the meat supplied to him was better than what he got on board ship.
The quantity of the ration (meat), 1 lb without bone, becomes, after cooking, about 9 ounces.
This is boiled, stewed, or curried and given with rice. It is more than some prisoners care about consuming at one meal, and, as an indulgence, they are allowed to reserve part for supper.
Recommendation as to Meat Ration.-The majority of the Committee recommend that this ration be reduced to 10 or 11 ounces. (Mr. TONNOCHY dissents, considering the present meat ration not excessive).
VEGETABLES. -The ration is at present 1 lb.
The majority of the Committee think that this should be reduced to 14 ounces. (Mr. TONNOCHY dissents).
Recommendation.-The Committee are unanimously of opinion that rice, a most wholesome and nutritious article of diet, would form a part of the regular dietary of Europeans with advantage.
The Medical Officer informed the Committee that many of the prisoners complain of acidity and heartburn. This Dr. AYRES attributes to the tea, which is however of fair quality. The ration is ¼ lb.
Recommended.--That cocoa or gruel be allowed 2 or 3 times a week in the place of tea.
(3)
That the ration of tea be slightly increased to ½ lb. for convenience in calculating the quantity required. The cost of cocoa or gruel, it is supposed, would be somewhat higher, but in other respects the change seems desirable as variety in food and drink is necessary to health, dyspepsia frequently following too long a continuation of one kind of food, or food cooked in the same way.
SUGAR.--The ration hitherto allowed has been 3¾ oz. This quantity is quite unreasonable, it is largely in excess of what the prisoners can use.
Recommended-The Committee unanimously recommend that the quantity be reduced to 2 oz.
General Recommendations.
That the ordinary diet be slightly varied. That fresh fish and suet pudding take the place of meat 2 or 3 times a week. The value of the latter, as an article of prison diet, is mentioned in the Appendix to the Lords' Report, page 93, Note C.
PENAL DIET.
EUROPEANS.
This ration, 1¼ lb. of bread given in two meals, is as small an allowance as will sustain health.
By an Order of His Excellency the present Governor, dated 3rd September, 1872, prisoners sentenced to 3 months imprisonment, or more, for the first 10 days in each month, up to 6 months, were to be fed on bread and water only.
By an amended Order, this diet is imposed from the 1st to the 5th day and from 16th to the 20th of each month.
In the case of prisoners sentenced to 14 days imprisonment only, the diet for the whole period is bread and water.
This diet affects the weight and strength, but not the health of prisoners, according to the Medical Officer's statement, when not carried out for longer periods than directed in the Order referred to.
Sometimes, when prisoners fall off in weight, it has been the practice to add gruel to the penal diet, or in cases where the decrease of weight is great and rapid, extra rations are ordered, or the prisoners are put back to full rations.
The Committee cannot but think that too much importance has been attached to a decrease in weight, which is by no means a perfect test of insufficiency of diet, as is pointed out in the Lords' Report, part 2, Chap. 11, page 76.
Some prisoners, Chinese especially, owing to the suspension of hard labour, actually gain flesh on rice and water as the weight book proves.
The penal diet, as before remarked, cannot be reduced.
The attention of the Committee has been particularly called to the manner in which a bread and water diet given as a punishment for Gaol offences conflicts with the bread and water diet given as part of the punishment under the sentence, and their remarks and recommendations on this point will be found in a subsequent part of the report.
Recommendations.--It is sufficient here to state that the Committee strongly recommend that extra rations be more sparingly ordered by the Medical Officer, and that the rule which they have drawn up, that he be directed to enter in his journal the medical reasons for ordering any alteration in the diet of any prisoner, be sanctioned.
The Committee also strongly recommend that prisoners on penal diet be compelled to do every day some amount of moderately hard work. It is the opinion of the majority that they should be compelled to pick a certain amount of oakum, say from ¾ to 1 lb. each day.
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