400 MANUAL OF THE XILAGIKI DISTRICT. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

 PRISONS. 



{By Lieut. -Colonel Clemkntson, M.S.C, Superintendent of Prisons, Ootacamand, 

 and Joint Magistrate, Nilagiris.) 



European Prison — buildings — prisoners— discipline — industries — diet — dress 



health — instruction — cost — establishment. — District Jail — situation — build- 

 ings—industries — diet — health. — Subsidiary Jails. 



European Prison at Ootacamand. 

 CHAP. XIX. The European Prison was designed, as a Central Jail, for the 

 Prisons accommodation of Europeans sentenced to penal servitude and 



long terms of imprisonment throughout India. It consists of a 



Pr^s^on^ block of buildings containing two rows of small separate cells. 



Description of thirty-six in number, arranged opposite each other in a lower 



the uildinge. ^^^ upper story with a corridor between. The capacity of the 



cells on the ground-floor is 977'65 cubic feet and of those in the 



upper 936-3 cubic feet, except the two at the west end, which 



are 1,656-32 cubic feet. These latter have flat roofs, but the 



roofs of all the others are dome-shaped. The ground-floor also 



contains a guard-room, office-room, and a hospital sufficiently large 



to accommodate four patients. The jail yard is divided into 



compartments with a workshed in three of them and two small 



store-rooms. In the fourth there is a kitchen 



Character The jail was Open for the reception of prisoners in 1862. The 



and number ^^.g^ convict admitted was a man sentenced by the Sessions Court 

 of prisoners. . . "^ 



of Mangalore in February of this year. In the March following 



twenty-nine convicts, chiefly civilian criminals, were received from 

 Calcutta, and in June five mihtary court-martial prisoners from 

 different cantonments of the Presidency. In later years, as 

 suitable jail accommodation became available in the other Presi- 

 dencies, convicts ceased to be transferred from thence to this 

 jail; and at present it is chiefly used for the confinement of military 

 prisoners and civilians, Europeans and Eurasians, sentenced to 

 long terms, or for shorter terms, if sentenced by the local Courts. 

 The total number incarcerated up to November 1878 was 298, of 

 whom 110 were sentenced by the Civil Criminal Courts and 188 

 by the Military Courts. The daily average in jail for the last 

 five years ending 31st December 1877 was 2573; 7"19 civilians 

 and 18*54 military. 



Female convicts are not admitted into this jail, nor are civil 

 prisoners (debtors). For juveniles there is no separate accommo- 



