104 REPORT — 1864. 



shall be applied, in order to determine tlie grounds on whicli a fitting dietary shall 

 be based in the several conditions of laboui' and confinement in which it shall be 

 used, and that no change shall be made tending to lower a dietaiy until by the 

 same method it has been proved that the proposed dietary would be sufiicient. 

 This is not, however, the method adopted ; but dietaries were framed, as they have 

 been recently altered, upon the intimations of non-scientific men, upon the guesses 

 of medical men, or upon a general and inexact appreciation of the results of those 

 which preceded them. In no instance has such a proof been souglit for as would 

 satisfy the requirements of exact research. 



Thus in the most recent change, viz. that effected during the present year, we find 

 the grounds most imsatisfactory. The Committee appointed to investigate the 

 subject having ascertained that a certain scheme which had been provided for 

 county jails in 1843 is still in use in forty to fifty county jails (that is to say in 

 only one-third of the county jails), they infer, in their own words, "that in these 

 instances the diet was believed to be sufficient for the maintenance of the health of 

 the prisoners, and for their support imder the labour to which they were subjected ,•" 

 and having found, as they say, that these inferences were confirmed in the instance 

 of some large prison (Wandsworth) open to the inspection of the Committee, there 

 were reasonable gi-ounds for attempting a reduction of the ordinary dietary in the 

 Convict Prison. You will observe that the conditions which they inquire into are 

 not those in which the dietaiy to be recommended by them is to be used ; and even 

 those conditions are not to be subjected to a rigid scientific examination, but the 

 Committee, in their own words, simply "inspected several of these prisoners, both 

 male and female, and found them in a fair state of health considering the length of 

 their imprisonment;" and from these two facts alone, viz. the continued use of this 

 echeme in a minority of county and borough jails, and their inspection of a few 

 prisoners in one county jail, they proceeded to vary the dietary in convict prisons, 

 and to reduce the cooked meat by 16 ozs. per week. 



The point to which I wish to draw your attention is not whether the dietary 

 formerly or now in use is or is not exactly adapted to the wants of ihe convicts, 

 for upon that important point there is no sufficient information, but that changes 

 are made imder the pressure of mere public opinion, by medical gentlemen, on 

 gTounds which are not logical, and without making use of the only plan by wliich 

 the fitness could be proved — that of scientific inquiry into the conditions in which 

 the dietary is to be used. It could not excite surprise that with such a basis on 

 which to ground changes in dietary there should appear, even to non-medical 

 men, sufficient reason to distrust the results. The lioard of Directors of Convict 

 Prisons accordingly append a letter, in which they state, 1st, that " experience can 

 only decide whether the dietary is sufficient to keep able-bodied men in good health 

 during a confinement of many years in prison ;" 2nd, that they reserve to themselves 

 the definition of light and hard labour; 3rd, that tliey reject the proposition that boj-s 

 imder set. eighteen, and men above vet. sixty-five years should be placed upon 

 light-labour die.t ; and 4th, that they modify the fomiula for thickening the soup. 



In the absence of the necessary proofs on wliich to exactly adjust the dietary to 

 the wants of the convicts, the only safe plan is to allow an amount of food greater 

 than that which falls to the share of equally hard-working and more honest 

 labourers. 



Our county and borough prisons offer far greater diversity of dietary than is 

 found in convict prisons ; for the dietary of each jail is arranged by the magis- 

 trates, and the Government, wliose assent must be obtained, has no standard 

 dietary which it can enforce, and no dietary which has been proved on scientific 

 groimds to be adapted to the different states of prison discipline, and no officer who, 

 Being specially acquainted with the subject, has been appointed to advise either the 

 Government or the magistrates in their searcli after truth. Hence, whilst from 

 one-third to one-half of the jails have adopted a scheme of dietaiy which the 

 Government has recommended since 1843, but which the late Conmiittee of the 

 House of Lords, with Lord Camai-von as Chairman, have affirmed to be eminently 

 imscientific and unsatisfactory, the other half have dietaries which differ each from 

 the other in almost every particular. 



In none, whether the Government scheme or others, has there been a scientific 



