PART IV.] Composition of a Maximum Diet Compatible with Health. 687 



English Local Prison standard, for the maintenance of persons of an average weight of 

 110 and 134 lbs. — the former scale being for Bengalis and the latter for natives of 

 Behar and of Upper India generally. These scales were in force in Bengal up to 

 March 1879 when they were replaced by a dietary based on the recommendations of 

 the Indian Jail Conference of 1877. According to the new regulations the issue of 

 animal food, instead of being general to labouring prisoners, as had been the case 

 heretofore, was restricted to such of them as had been accustomed to partake of it 

 before their admission into jail. The difference in the aggregate nutritive value, how- 

 ever, of the dietaries, as judged from their chemical constituents, was not great, for 

 the daily diets for Bengalis contained only from 4 to 13 grains less of nitrogen (with no 

 material change in the carbon), and the scales should have sufficed for men weighing 

 from 103 to 107 lbs. ; whilst the scales for Beharis should have sufficed for men weighing 

 from 125 to 130 lbs. Kecords of jail weighments show that neither Bengalis nor Beharis 

 have an average weight equal to that for which even the minimum of their respective 

 diet scales is estimated to provide. Nevertheless it was decided, after a year's trial, 

 that the Conference dietary was wholly insufficient, and that it had, indeed, contributed 

 materially to the death rate amongst the prisoners. New scales for Bengalis and for 

 Beharis were introduced last July, and are now in force. The table shows that the 

 present scales for Bengalis should suffice for prisoners weighing from 132 to 141 lbs., 

 and the Behari scales for men weighing from 152 to 172 lbs. If the issue of the Con- 

 ference rations was efficiently supervised and the cooking properly conducted, it is 

 difficult to reconcile the recorded experience of Bengal with that which is furnished 

 by, for example, the jails of Burma. Here, with a maximum labouring diet scale which, 

 calculated on a like basis, should suffice for men weighing only 94 lbs. — and which, 

 moreover, has been in force for several years — the mortality for some time past has been 

 lower than it has been in any province in India; and where, during 1880, out of a 

 total of 6,971 prisoners who were weighed, 5,206 were found to have gained since their 

 admission into jail. In Burma, therefore, a maximum diet containing 176 grains of 

 nitrogen and 4,780 of carbon has been found compatible with exceptionally favourable 

 mortuary returns ; whereas in Bengal, a prison population, closely similar as regards 

 habits and physique, is considered to have been partially starved on even a minimum 

 scale of diet containing 192 grains of nitrogen and 4,814 grains of carbon — rice having 

 formed the staple cereal in both provinces. 



82. In the tabular statements appended to this memorandum, the nutritive value 

 of 151 scales of Indian Jail diets for labouring prisoners has been computed. Of these, 

 nominally only 86 are actually in force at the present time, and several are but modi- 

 fications of the same scales adapted to prisoners of varying length of sentences. In 

 reality, however, the number of dietaries is considerably greater than the above figures 

 imply, as some latitude is necessarily allowed to local officials as regards the selection 

 of such grains and pulses as are miost readily obtainable in their particular districts, 

 and at different seasons of the year. One kind of grain is, consequently, frequently 



