49 



intimation of the enforcement of this rule has been given, and 

 citizens found walking in the streets are immediately taken into 

 custody by the police, and after being lashed on the back with 

 rattans in the police stations, where they are confined for 

 several hours, are released. About the end of June, the Chief 

 Justice's groom, who was leading a horse in the street, was 

 arrested, and had his back marked with rattans. About the 

 same time the rickshaw coolie of Mr. M. S. Fernando, notary 

 public, was arrested by the Maradana police for walking in the 

 middle of the road. On the sudden disappearance of his ser- 

 vant, Mr. Fernando made enquiries, and ultimately discovered 

 that he was locked up in the Maradana Police Headquarters, to 

 which he telephoned. He was informed that the man would 

 be released, and when he returned later, his back was lacerated 

 with rattans. 



Again, Mr. Fernando's notarial clerk was absent from 

 work. He also had been similarly treated by the police, though 

 he was a well-conducted and educated man. 



On the day the rule was first enforced, numbers of Govern- 

 ment and merchants' clerks were arrested on their way to office, 

 and locked up in the Fort Police Station. 



Respectable residents of the educated classes are not 

 exempt from police violence, some of them being kicked in the 

 public streets for the infraction of this rule. 



Daily every morning Sinhalese men, women, and lads are 

 arrested in villages and confined in suburban police stations, 

 and are then carried into town. Large motor vans are filled, 

 under military escort, the police literally kicking people into the 

 vans. 



Hundred of men, herded in small police lock-ups princi- 

 pally villagers on suspicion have in certain places been con- 

 tracting dysentry. 



49. It is unfortunate that the Governor of the Colony, Sir 

 Robert Chalmers, did not see the necessity of consulting the 

 unofficial members of the Legislative Council before proclaim- 

 ing Martial Law. Both His Excellency and the Colonial Secre- 

 tary, Mr. R. E. Stubbs, are new to the colony, and are, there- 

 fore, inexperienced. It is submitted that consultation of un- 



