670 



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



1879 the death-rate was 140 per mille. The diet scales at present in general use 

 were introduced in June 1878. Those in force previous to this date sanctioned the 

 issue of 24 ounces of meat per week. In the new diet the meat was replaced by a small 

 extra allowance of pulse, and by a weekly issue of 28 ounces of parched gram. The 

 proportion of nitrogen in gram is so high that its substitution for animal food, instead 

 of reducing the albuminates of the diet, actually increased its value in a chemical 

 sense ; for whereas the former diet contained 264 grains of nitrogen and 4,975 of 

 carbon, the present diet, taking the average of the ordinary scale in use, contains 

 302 grains of nitrogen and 5,374 grains of carbon.* The fatty matter in the diet 

 averages about 1^ ounce. 



57. The mortality in the Punjab jails had commenced to be exceptionally severe 

 before the new dietary was introduced ; it reached its maximum of 140 per mille in 

 1879, and in 1880 it fell to 78-8 — the fluctuations seeming to occur quite irrespective 

 of the nature of the dietary. No appreciable result followed the issue of specially 

 liberal scales of diet to the prisoners of the Eawal Pindi and Eupar jails. The 

 death-rate in the latter was 216 per mille in 1878, 283 in 1879, and 104 in 1880, 

 the decline in the mortality being contemporaneous with its decline in most other jails. 



As if to give the recent dietary-experience amongst prisoners in this province 

 almost the character of a specially devised experiment, the new scale had scarcely 

 been adopted in the large jail at Umballa when the old scale was reverted to and 

 retained until the middle of 1880. Nevertheless this jail became one of the most 

 unhealthy in the province. In 1878 the death-rate was 235 per 1,000 of its average 

 daily strength, and in 1879 it reached 332. In 1880, however, the mortality fell to 

 81 "3 per mille, as it has already been stated to have done in most other jails in the 



province. 



* Vide Foot-note to para. 49. 



