56
53. I have met with no case of this kind in this
district. My Cachar experiences have now rather
fallen into oblivion, but I have an impression
there were one or two cases there.
54. No.
55. I have met with no such cases.
56. Moderate consumers generally mix it with
tobacco and excessive consumers with dhatura.
58. The price of spirits has been raised far too
high, and the recent orders forbidding the private
manufacture of madak are most objectionable.
59. I would reduce the retail price of a quart
of country spirits to from six to eight annas,
adhering to the present central distillery system.
The interests of the distillers would ensure the
chief liquor being cheap. I would also allow
private manufacture of madak.
63. I have no objections to present system.
64. I have no objections as they work smoothly,
and I am not aware of any smuggling.
65. I would make no change in the taxation
of ganja.
66. I am aware of no reasons for different rates
in different localities.
67. No.
68. I have never had such shops in any dis-
trict where I have been employed.
69. Local enquiries are made as to the wishes
of the feelings. The present official tendency is
rather to close old shops to opening new ones.
70. I know of no smuggling.
Oral evidence.
I have been over 19 years in the service. I
had seven years' experience in Assam as Assist-
ant Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner in
the districts of Cachar and Sylhet. I am not
prepared to give a precise opinion about ganja.
In my written answers I made as precise state-
ments as I could, based on enquiries specially
made here in the Murshidabad district on pur-
pose. I did not like to trust my memory in
regard to definite details.
The effects of ganja never came prominently
before me, except when I was in charge of the
Cachar Jail as Assistant Commissioner. There
I saw its alleged effects in connection with tea
garden coolies as producing insanity. They were
lunatics sent to the jail for observation. Ganja
was the principal cause assigned. I, of course,
did not make special enquiries as to the cause.
It was not my business to do that. I heard
dhatura mentioned there. It was said that coolies
and others put in dhatura and other substances
to increase the effect of the dose. I have heard
the same here. I did not verify this statement.
It was a matter of common talk that other drugs
were thus used to increase the effect, that there was
admixture of intoxicants for this purpose. I heard
this in connection with these insanity cases. The
tea garden coolies are also noted hands for liquor.
They took anything they could get. We had to
take special precautions about their liquor shops.
We had constant complaints.
I think that the connection of ganja with
insanity was probably much exaggerated. Just
as in the ordinary vital statistics the police put
down every thing to fever, so they are apt to
put down insanity to ganja very freely, and often
without sufficient cause. So, when there is an
epidemic of cholera, everything like diarrhœa or
any allied form of sickness is put down to cholera.
I daresay the lunatics, as a rule, did use ganja.
It grows wild in Cachar, and that could be used.
The excise ganja was generally used by the
coolies, and because they used it, it was put down
as the cause. Ganja had a bad name. My opi-
nion is that ganja is a more deleterious drug than
opium. I am not prepared to say that it is more
deleterious than alcohol. I have not found that
insanity is so freely attributed to alcohol as to
ganja. But alcohol is much more widely used
than ganja, and, in my opinion, does more harm
to the people. Ganja is the poor man's intoxi-
cant. It is cheap. It is much used by coolies,
and this explains the readiness of the police to
assign it as a cause of insanity. It is because
you get the paupers in the asylums that so large
a proportion of cases is attributed to ganja. The
well-to-do lunatics do not come, as a rule, to the
asylums.
The planters sometimes complain that the
whole garden work is stopped at one time by
liquor. Some planters accordingly take the shops
themselves and keep them under their control to
prevent drunkenness. This is sometimes an ex-
cellent plan. The shops cannot be closed as
stimulant is required.
21. Evidence of MR. T. L. JENKINS, Magistrate and Collector of Dacca.
2. The definitions given may be accepted for
this district with this modification, that the "round
ganja" also includes ganja with small twigs which
have no rounded shape. These pass as "round
ganja" in this and several other districts.
3. In all the districts of the Rajshahi Division,
in Murshidabad and Dacca the hemp plant grows
spontaneously. In Manikganj sub-division of
Dacca it is abundant.
4. By bhang and siddhi as distinguished from
ganja. The bhang or siddhi plant and the ganja
plant are easily distinguishable by their appearance.
The leaves of the former are dark green and thick,
while those of the latter are light green and
thinner.
5. The plant grows abundantly in low, damp,
and soft soil. Excessive rain injures the plants
and causes their leaves to lose narcotic properties.
6. The growth of the wild hemp is ordinarily
dense.
7. There is no cultivation of the hemp plant for
production of ganja or charas in this district.
Sometimes plants growing from the seeds of ganja
purchased at the licensed shops are preserved and
reared with care by some consumers, evidently with
the object of obtaining ganja from them, or of
using their leaves as intoxicants.
The dried leaves of wild bhang plants are some-
times stored for use as bhang or as a remedy for
cattle disease. The plants are not used for their
fibre or seeds.
8. The growth of wild bhang plants is being
greatly restricted by the action of the excise and
police officers.
9. When wild bhang plants are reared, cow-dung,
oil cakes, ashes, and burnt earth are put on the soil