662 Dietaries of Labouring Prisoners in Indian Jails. [part iv. 



It will be seen that the above table is divided into two parts. In the upper part four 

 of the scales of the Conference dietary are contrasted with the " one to four months " 

 of the adapted English scale. Out of twenty headings under which comparisons are 

 instituted, in four instances only are minus signs, and these refer to the fats. In the 

 lower part of the table the same Conference scales are contrasted with the "over four 

 months " adapted English scales, and here minus signs are appended to the Conference 

 diet figures under six out of the twenty headings. Four of these are again due to 

 paucity of fatty matter, and the remaining two refer to the same aliment in one diet, 

 — a small difference in favour of the adapted English scale as against the non-animal 

 food form of the rice dietary. The difference is very trifling, about one-tenth of an 

 ounce of albuminates, which is equivalent to 8 grains of nitrogen. On the other hand, 

 the plus signs appended to the Conference scales indicate in many instances a consi- 

 derably more liberal supply of food, both in the nitrogenous elements and also in the 

 carbo-hydrates. The latter are given in some of the scales to a considerably larger 

 extent than would be accorded were the adapted English scale followed, so that if there 

 be any truth in modern physiological teaching as regards the respective parts taken by 

 the proximate aliments in the development of force, the extra amount of starchy food 

 recommended by the Conference should not be objected to. 



42. As, however, in most provinces a mixture of several cereals is adopted in 

 prison dietaries, it. may be that the mean value of the seven scales given in the table 

 (para. 38) may furnish a closer approximate to the amount of nutriment which the 

 Conference intended that their dietary should contain than is to be inferred from the 

 data in the foregoing paragraph. Calculated in this manner, the daily value of the 

 vegetable form of diet in terms of nitrogen and carbon is 223 grains of the former and 

 4,755 of the latter, the nitrogen being to the carbon as 1 to 21. Such a diet should 

 be sufficient, on the English Local Prison standard, for labouring prisoners of an average 

 weight of about 119 lbs. 



43. As regards the curtailment of the fatty matter, the Conference appears to have 

 suggested a retrograde step ; for, although the deficiency is not so marked in all the 

 scales still it would probably be the opinion of most authorities that the amount is 

 decidedly insufficient in some of them, and barely sufficient in others. 



44. It does not appear that the recommendations of this Conference regarding 

 dietary have as yet been very extensively adopted. So far as I can learn, the only jails 

 in which the dietary proposed was introduced were those of Lower Bengal and of the 

 Hyderabad Assigned Districts. There are, however, comparatively few prisoners in the 

 lails of the latter province, the total labouring population barely reaching a daily 

 average of 1,000. 



45. In March 1879 the dietary which had been in force in Lower Bengal from 

 about 1860 was changed, and the Bengali prisoners were placed on the diet proposed 

 bv the Conference. The diet of the natives of Behar and of Upper India generally, 



