CO885-(2-3) — Page 620

103

BRITISH GUIANA.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.885

Reference -

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

No. 26.

Governor Longden, C.M.G., to the Earl of Carnarvon.—(Received July 15.)

(No. 102. British Guiana.)

My Lord,

Government House, Georgetown, June 16, 1874.

I TOOK the earliest opportunities after my assumption of this government to pay a series of visits to the Prisons, the Public Hospital, the Leper Asylum, the Orphan Asylum, the Penal Settlement at Massaruni, and other public institutions.

2. The overcrowded state of the Georgetown Gaol appeared to me to require immediate attention. There were, at the time of my visit, 492 prisoners, of whom 448 were males and 44 females. Of the 448 males 197 only were confined in separate cells, 70 were in the gaol infirmary, and the remaining 181 were huddled together in associated wards.

3. Since the date of my first visit, on the 10th of April, the daily average number of prisoners has been constantly increasing, and reached 589 on the 14th instant. It will, perhaps, convey to your Lordship a more definite idea of the extent to which the prison is overcrowded if I may be allowed to state, in detail, the accommodation in the prison, and the manner in which the prisoners, male and female, were respectively disposed of on the night of the 14th instant, according to a return which I inclose.

4. In the building known as the " Brick Prison" there are 80 cells. Sixty of these are 8 feet long, 4 feet 3 inches wide, and 8 feet high, containing 276 cubic feet of air space. The remaining 20 cells are 7 feet 9 inches long, 4 feet 3 inches wide, and 8 feet 11 inches high, measuring 295 cubic feet each. There were 77 prisoners in these cells, 3 cells being reserved for punishment cells. In the building known as the "Wooden Prison" there are 120 cells on 3 floors. Each cell is 10 feet long, and 4 feet 6 inches wide. Those in the lower story are 9 feet 10 inches high; those on the second are 8 feet 4 inches high; and those on the upper story are 7 feet 8 inches high. The cubical contents of the cells are, therefore, 446, 381, and 349 feet respectively. One prisoner was confined in each of these cells. I have given the measurements in detail, because they conclusively prove that it would be impossible, in this climate, to confine more than one prisoner in each cell. In this way 197 male prisoners were confined in separate cells, 61 prisoners were confined in the hospital, and 3 in the debtors' ward. The remaining 257 male prisoners were confined in associated wards of the following dimensions:-No. 1 Ward, 29 feet long, 9 feet wide, and 9 feet 7 inches high, containing, therefore, 2,501 cubic feet. In this ward there were 21 prisoners, giving to ench prisoner 119 cubic feet of air. Wards Nos. 2 and 3 are each 29 feet long, 19 feet 3 inches wide, and 9 feet 7 inches high, and contain 5,349 cubic feet of space. In No. 2 there were 44 prisoners, and in No. 3 42 prisoners, giving them 121 and 127 fect of air respectively. No. 4 Ward, which is 29 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 9 feet 7 inches high, contained 33 prisoners, being at the rate of 169 feet, cubic, to each prisoner. In two rooms in the Brick Prison, each 23 feet 7 inches long, 7 feet 9 inches wide, and 8 feet 11 inches high, containing 1,628 cubic feet of space, there were 26 prisoners-13 in each room--who had, therefore, 125 feet of air to breathe. In three small rooms, on the ground floor, under the gaol hospital, there were 42 prisoners confined. These rooms are only occasionally used. The remaining 49 male prisoners were locked up, loose, in the Brick Prison, where they lay on the floor of the corridors, able to talk not only among them- selves, but with the prisoners in the cells, with whom they could converse through the inspection holes in the cell doors. So loud, indeed, is sometimes the talking of the prisoners in the gaol, that I myself heard the noise as I was walking in the public street outside the walls one Sunday evening, and sent to inquire the cause.

5. The female department is in a scarcely less unsatisfactory state. There were 71 female prisoners in gaol on the night of the 14th of June. Of these only 14 were con- fined by themselves in separate cells; 39 were confined, by threes together, in 13 cells; 5 were in the hospital for females, and the remaining 13 were locked up loose in the

104