554
They are dotted all over the place. Where there
is not a tea garden, you have either a howling
wilderness of grass jungle or an Assamese village;
and in such an Assamese village you would be
almost sure to find it. I cannot say, of course,
that there was any general sowing of the plant,
except perhaps by the wind. The. Assamese are
certainly not now a bhang-consuming people
whatever they were. I doubt if they ever were.
Question 14.—Prisoners go out to extramural
labour and pick the growing plant and eat it dry.
I sometimes get a ball of ganja leaves close to the
jail. It seems to me that it is put there by
prisoners for their use. It is so easy for them to
get it. I have seen one case since I came here.
Other people may use the stuff too, but not
"without preparation." The uses by the public
generally are shown in clauses (2), (3), and (4) of
this answer.
Question 16.—By "bhang cake or ball" I
mean the manufactured article, the pressed head
as sold in the shops. All I mean is that the wild
plant, owing to the male plant not being removed,
has not sufficient glutinous matter to make the
cake. What I describe as smoked in question 14
is the dried leaves of the wild plant, not the ganja
cake or ball. I have not seen the ball. I believe
round ganja is not sold here much. What I have
seen is broken fragments taken out of the clothes
of prisoners. I have not seen it in shops. I do
not know the flat or round ganja in mass as
produced in Bengal.
Question 20.—Here I take the whole popula-
tion, including garden coolies. I arrived at this
average by getting up all my subordinates and
asking them what they thought; and I struck an
average, checking it by what I thought likely
myself. I may have overstated the percentage of
habitual consumers. What I meant was five out
of every hundred of the population. That would
be nearly 20 per cent. of men. That would be
high. The Assamese do take it, but in small
quantities, and, as a rule, only occasionally. It is
not an Assamese vice at all. I do not know of
any class of Assamese that takes it. I do not
think the hill people take it even to the same
extent as the Assamese. I mean the hill people
beyond the frontier. Neither do our Nagas take
it to my knowledge. The Khasias do not take it
much. Of the Garos I know nothing. These
three are our only hill tribes. Of course my
knowledge of the hill people beyond the frontier
is based entirely on what has been told me. I
have no personal knowledge.
Question 23.—By "bhang" here, I mean bhang,
the growing plant, not the ganja proper. I am
speaking of the whole produce of the wild plant.
By bhang I always mean the growing plant which
we have here; by ganja I mean the imported arti-
cle. The only ganja I know is the excise article.
Question 25.—My opinion is that ganja con-
sumption is on the increase, It is based on what
was told me unanimously by my subordinates in
all departments. I asked them all to study the
question, and then I had them together and asked
them. Their opinion is certainly, I think, a fair
expression of what natives think. This is the only
ground I have. I never gave the matter thought
till then. What I asked the men was what they
saw when they were boys; and they told me the
hemp consumption was on the increase among the
Assamese themselves.
Question 45.—As regards cases which used to
come to me as Civil Surgeon in Sylhet (for exam-
ple) a man would be sent to me with a letter to
keep him under observation and report on him on
a fixed date. I had to report as to his state of
mind (if a criminal), as to whether he was fit to
make a defence, or (if not) as to whether he should
be sent to the lunatic asylum. With that letter
I would receive information, as a rule, simply as
to the facts which led to his being under arrest.
That was all. But as a good many of these cases
came from tea gardens, I got more detailed in-
formation regarding the circumstances leading to
the arrest. But it was most exceptional to get
any past history of the man. As to his habits
with regard to intoxicants, I do not think it was
ever given. Sometimes I would get an account of
the facts which led to the attack of insanity. I
would get that through the Sub-divisional Officer,
prepared by the police. It was sent usually after
the man had come, because it took time to make
the enquiries. Very often we had to send the man
on to the asylum without the form, because it was
not received. This information might be of value
to me in forming a diagnosis of the insanity if it
told me, for example, of any relative being mad.
There is a heading for "Supposed cause." It is the
police who supply this information, and relatives
of the man, if he has any. I think it is fairly
reliable if there are relatives for the police to
inquire from; for the police have no object in
making wrong statements. But it is of little
value to us; for I usually decide the question of
insanity on the merits of the case, the man's own
acts and symptoms, quite apart from history.
That is all I have to do. I have only to submit
the medical certificate containing facts indicating
insanity. I do not certify to cause of insanity as
Civil Surgeon.
The information regarding cause is obtained by
the police, certainly not by the District Superin-
tendent of Police, but by some subordinate. I do
not know who it is that gets it. My idea of the
reliability of the information rests entirely on the
fact that the police have no inducement to report
falsely. As a rule, though not, I think, always, a
man of technical knowledge is required to ascer-
tain cause. I say "not always," for the cause
may be obvious, as losing all friends, having an
injury to the head and never recovering, having a
bad fever and never recovering, or excesses of liquor
or ganja. All these are easily recognizable by an
ordinary person. As to these intoxicants, I do not
think the police would be in a position to dis-
criminate between the moderate or excessive use.
I do not think I could do it myself. I think the
police are usually guided by the fact that the man
had only one "spree," one casual indulgence.
If a man were found to be a habitual user of the
drug, I think they would write down ganja, with-
out any reference to any special outburst of in-
dulgence, if they could get no other cause. I think
they would be ready to jump at a conclusion. But,
of course, I cannot personally say with certainty
what the police would do. I do think that an in-
telligent policemen would put down ganja as the
cause merely because it was mentioned that the
man used the drug. He would enter "unknown"
under cause, if he did not conclude that the insa-
nity was really due to ganja. I know Mr.
Driberg's* view of the unreliability of the police
information; but I find in the asylum that some
lunatics whose insanity is put down to ganja by
the police admit that they have taken ganja out-
side and that it drove them mad. When I wrote
my answer to this question, I called up all the
* Mr. Driberg's statement read to witness.