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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. IX. 



On the whole, I may say we have no reason to be ashamed 

 of the medical institutions of this Colony. We have one Leper 

 and two Lunatic Asylums, twenty-seven Civil Hospitals, six 

 District Hospitals, and forty-five Outdoor Dispensaries. Our 

 prisons are now model institutions, and while stringent 

 measures are adopted by strict penal discipline to make 

 punishment what it should be, a deterrent from crime, every 

 endeavour is made to ensure the health and maintain the 

 physique of the convict, and thereby render him fit for the 

 hard labour he has to undergo. Juvenile prisoners have been 

 long carefully separated from old offenders, and confined in 

 a separate department of the prison ; and an Ordinance has 

 lately been passed for securing their reformation in a Refor- 

 matory, and in Industrial Schools. Almshouses for the aged 

 and infirm are urgently required, and have yet to be provided. 

 Friend-in-Need Societies have done much good in the time 

 past ; but these institutions cannot now cope with the increas- 

 ing destitution from the rapid increase of population, and 

 from want of employment. The private charity of the more 

 wealthy members of the community is needed, and must be 

 systematically afforded in lieu of the indiscriminate alms- 

 giving, long the practice of the country. The prevailing 

 distress from poverty and want of employment, however, 

 is such that measures on a larger scale must be devised by the 

 Municipalities, or by Government, not only for the relief of 

 indigence, but for the removal of the causes of pauperism, 

 which invariably produces crime. 



Civilisation and its advantages enjoyed by those in large 

 towns have yet to be extended to rural districts, the korales 

 and pattus of the various provinces, where, at times, under 

 the influence of drought and unfavourable seasons, sickness 

 occasionally breaks out, and decimates the population. This 

 was remarkably the case in 1864, 1866, and 1875, when fever 

 and dysentery were so remarkably rife. The people were 

 not on these occasions uncared for and left to perish of sick- 

 ness and starvation. Food was provided by Government ; 



