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CEYLON BRANCH— —ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



afterwards convicted of robbery, escaped again before sen- 

 tence. Escapes on a scale like this must be in every respect 

 injurious — the administration of justice is rendered nugatory, 

 opposition to the laws is engendered, the connexion between 

 crime and punishment is severed, and among the escaped there 

 must be many a Kurupunchy, the head and nucleus of a gang. 



There cannot be a doubt also, but that the use of the lash, 

 as formerly inflicted, though from the state of our gaol 

 discipline, and the want of proper secondary punishments, 

 sometimes unavoidable, is in its ultimate result, pernicious to 

 the character of the delinquent, and by consequence, inju- 

 rious to society : by the enduring marks left, it destroys every 

 prospect of return to future usefulness, dissolves the last ties 

 which united the sufferer to his fellows, and creates in him a 

 deep feeling of animosity against them : — the law has done to 

 him what never can be undone, and the miserable offender 

 finding no place for repentance, though he seek it carefully 

 with tears, betakes himself to the jungle, where like Esau, he 

 lives by his sword, and becomes a terror to all around. 



Of the state of education among the unhappy inmates of our 

 gaols we have few data, but from returns made to me at my 

 request when on Circuit, it appears that out of 120 prisoners 

 in the gaol of Kandy on the 9th August 1843, there were 76, 

 or about two-thirds who could neither read nor write, and 

 out of 100 in Jaffna gaol on the 30th January 1844, there 

 were 52 or about one-half, which was also the proportion in 

 Wellicadde Gaol, Colombo, according to the Return of the 

 Fiscal to the School Commission of 16th August 1844, there 

 being then in that establishment 145 prisoners, of whom 72 

 could neither read nor write, whereas in England the propor- 

 tion of uninstructecl to the entire number of offenders is 

 about one-third, and in Scotland about one-fifth, besides the 

 difference of quality in the education, and the difference of 

 age of the offenders. 



