PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
LTT
Reference -
C.O.88
885
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temporary provision to be made for the safe custody of the convicts employed on the Colombo Harbour Breakwater works.
2 As regards the general question, I have learnt with satisfaction that you have found it possible to put an end to the associated system at Welikada by increasing the number of cells in that prison from 308 to 400, and I shall hope to receive at an early date your report that this very necessary work has been satisfactorily completed. The provision of the funds requisite for commencing this year a prison at Kandy for the accommodation of 100 convicts on the separate system is also very satisfactory, and a proof of interest that you are taking in this, as in all other important questions connected with the well-being of the Colony. I shall receive with interest the further despatch to which you refer on the subject of the additional cellular accommodation, and the reform of the local prisons, merely observing that 1 do not think that the latter measure is one which it would be possible to postpone even until the completion of the breakwater
works.
3. Referring to your observations on that portion of my despatch of the 18th of February, 1875, which deals with the temporary prisons at Colombo, I have first to remark that, as regards the Breakwater Gaof in the old Commissariat Store, I am glad to find that so many of the measures which I recommended for the improvement of the sanitary details of the building have been carried into effect, and that, as regards the remainder, there are explanations which are in every respect satisfactory. Your Report on the health of the convicts in this building, and on the precautions taken to provide for the removal of the prisoners in the event of any outbreak of sickness, sufficiently assures me that there is no reason to fear any relaxation of that watchfulness and care upon which I relied in sanctioning the use of this building as a prison.
the
4. You have further dealt in your despatch of the 8th of May with the question of how far it is desirable to convert some, at least, of the Slave Island buildings into separate sleeping cells. Your principal objection to this measure, as I understand it, is based upon grave risk which would be incurred, from a sanitary point of view, in placing the prisoners in cells having a superficial area of only 42 square feet each, and in support of your view you compare the proposed cells with those of the Welikada permanent prison, which have an area of 79 square feet. But, unless I am mistaken as to the nature of the cells at Welikada, this comparison cannot fairly be made. The Welikada cell is, I believe, a cell in the strict sense of the word, intended for day and night occupation, and in it a limited area would mean a cramped condition and a very deficient allowance of cubical space, unless the remaining dimension, the height of the building, were extravagantly exaggerated. The proposed Slave Island cell is, on the other hand, a mere sleeping compartment, open at the top and ends, and with thorough cross-ventilation by opposite windows. At Slave Island, therefore, the cubical space per prisoner will continue to be, after the conversion as now, the total eubical contents of the building divided among the number of occupants; and the superficial area of the sleeping compartment, so long as it is sufficient for sleeping purposes, ceases to be an important factor in considering the sanitary condition, and, above all, ceases to be any measure whatever of the cubical space allotted to each prisoner. The restricted superficial area being the only objection which you urge on sanitary grounds against the proposed conversion, I cannot, looking at the question from this point of view, acquiesce in the desirability of abandoning it.
5. Under these circumstances, I need not refer to the alteration proposed in your despatch, namely, the separation of the sleeping places by partitions 18 inches high, beyond observing that this arrangement appears to me to be open to the objection that, while it impedes the view of the warder on duty, it forms no effectual obstacle to commu- nication of the "risoners with each other.
6. 1 observe that the cost of conversion for 100 prisoners is estimated in your despatch at 20,000 rupees; assuming that the work can be carried out in the manner described in the Memorandum attached to my despatch of the 18th February (and you do not give me to understand that this is not the case), I can hardly understand how so large an expenditure as 200 rupees per cell can be necessary, and this is a point which I think it desirable that you should refer for further consideration to your professional advisers.
7. I am glad to learn that several of the smaller details of improvement suggested in the Slave Island prisons have been, or are likely soon to be, carried out, and that the number of occupants has been reduced by the removal of 60 prisoners to an additional ward at the breakwater. The amount of accommodation which the Slave Island Prison will provide when the conversión is carried out, as laid down in my despatch of the 18th February, will, after the removal of these prisoners, rather exceed the reappropria- tion given in the Memorandum attached to that despatch, because, since hut G is now reported to merely a shed incapable of conversion, and is, so far as can be judged from
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the plans, quite unfit for occupation in its present conditition, it will become necessary to remove it, and to substitute for it a temporary brick hut, which can casily be designed so as to accommodate more than the twenty-four prisoners allotted to hut G.
8. With regard to the principle of the cellular, or, what is more commonly and properly called the separate system, you append to your despatch a report from the Principal Civil Medical Officer (Dr. Kynsey), inclosing and adopting one from the Medical Officer of the Welikada Gaol (Dr. Vanderstraaten), and both these officers renounce the separate system altogether as inapplicable to Ceylon and its climate.
9. You state that you are not "prepared to accept in toto" the opinions of these gentlemen, whilst at the same time you are "desirous not to run counter to the opinions of two gentlemen of such authority and experience."
10. The conclusions respecting prison discipline arrived at by Her Majesty's Government about ten years ago were founded upon a laborious and extensive inquiry into European, American, and Asiatic experience, and the evidence then accessible tended to show that, subject to some modifications in respect of degree or duration, which might be required in the case of weaker races and in enervating climates, the same punishments have generally similar effects in all countries and on all races; and (setting aside solitary imprisonment as a punishment reserved for offences committed within the prisons) it was laid down that the separate system, in one of the two forms described in the Prison Digest (p. 65 of the Parliamentary copy), was indispensable in every well-regulated prison. Care was taken not to limit the discretion of the Colonial autho rities in their choice between the rigorous and relaxed form, or in the matter of duration. 11. It was thus from a wide and solid basis of experience that we took our departure. But it was by no means assumed that further and instructive experience might not accrue. What was desired was, first, that the Colonial authorities should learn from us, and next that we should learn from them. It was desired that in some kinds of the improvement their course of proceeding should he watchful and tentative, and that they should test by local experiment our inferences from general experience, or from that portion of general experience which it had been hitherto possible for us to investigate.
12. The second sets of correspondence presented to Parliament in 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1871, will show that the treatment of the subject in these years was conceived in no other spirit, and you will find that same spirit pervading the correspondence of subsequent years presented last Session, and which will shortly be in print, and be transmitted to the Governors of Colonies.
13. In Lord Kimberley's despatch of 15th April, 1871, he adverts to the strong testimony of two able and experienced Colonial Governors in favour of the applicability of the separate system to uncivilized or semi-eivilized races; and in the conclusion of his despatch he writes: "I have thought it desirable thus to draw your especial attention to some of the questions raised in the three sets of correspondence which have been successively laid before Parliament since 1867 and transmitted for your information ; but the experience obtained in the Colonies and represented in the correspondence forms an important addition to that of this country, and I recommend the study of it to the Governors of Colonies, and to others concerned in the management of Colonial prisons. Attention to the results of these extended inquiries will prevent the undue over-ruling of generally approved principles by mere individual opinion. At the same time care should be taken to note the instances in which further experience or local circumstances point to a modification of the existing system."
14. I am myself sincerely desirous to consider with care any facts or opinions to which I can attribute a real value in estimating the effects of the separate system, or any other principles of prison discipline. But the opinions of Dr. Kynsey and Dr. Vanderstraaten, however high their authority may be within the sphere of their profession, do not appear to me to deserve the degree of deference which you have been willing to accord to them. You have yourself shown them to be merely a crude generalization from a limited and unduly exclusive set of facts. And I am glad to observe that your own views, as regards the separate system generally, are in accordance with those which 1 hold.
15. Without wishing to place any undue pressure upon the financial resources of the Colony, it will, I am convinced, be found practicable to reorganise by degrees the present prison arrangements upon something approaching the following system :---
(1) Local prisons for temporary detention, on the separate or cellular system. (2.) Permanent prisons for the early penal stage, on the separate or cellular system with intra-mural or oiler hard labour, not in association.
(3.) Prisons in connection with public works, more or less of a temporary nature,
3 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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