56
BHOWANIPORE ASYLUM.
for their maintenance. In this manner payments have been realized which could not other-
wise have been enforced.
The total expenditure of the year, including passage-money and sea-outfits, was
Rs. 47,581, against Rs. 56,170 in 1868; of which Rs. 10,875 were incurred for passages and
sea-outfits, Rs. 24,335 were expended on establishment (including salary of superintendent),
against Rs. 21,306: the difference is due to sanctioned increase of wages and to enhanced
numbers. The cost of actual maintenance per man per month was Rs. 23-5-4, against Rs. 29
in 1868, without deduction for sums received in payment for individuals.
I can add nothing to what has been said in former years of the characters and conduct
of the European subordinates. The head overseer and matron are so thoroughly suited in
every respect to their situations, that all the daily routine of discipline and order is carried on
almost without my intervention. Except where there are acute cases and others requiring
medical treatment, my daily visit becomes little more than a visit of inspection, and for the
management of correspondence and other external business of the institution. Overseer
Franklin continues to deserve most favorable mention. During the year the health of the
head overseer rendered it desirable that he should take privilege leave, and advantage was
taken of the time when the asylum had fewest inmates. This threw additional work on the
matron and second overseer, whose conduct left nothing to desire.
I have the honor to be,
SIR,
Your most obedient servant,
ARTHUR PAYNE, M.D., Surgeon-Major,
Superintendent of Asylums at the Presidency,
Annual inspection report of the asylum by Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, G. Saunders.
AT Bhowanipore there has been everywhere the same regularity and order observable
as was noticed by me in my inspection remarks last year. Surgeon-Major Payne is an
excellent superintendent, and bestows such an amount of care and attention on every detail
connected with the management of this institution, that it would be scarcely possible to
find fault with anything that has come under my notice during the year. The most scrupu-
lous cleanliness is observable in every part of the premises, and I have never yet, at any
one of my visits, observed the wards or rooms in which the insanes are confined otherwise
than perfectly clean and neat.
The conservancy also must be very perfect, for anything approaching a disagreeable smell
is never, as far as I am aware, to be detected in any part of the asylum premises. That portion
of the asylum allotted to the female insanes is a marvel of studied neatness and regularity.
The wards are some of them wanting repair, and the centre building in the asylum grounds
(in which the overseer resides) is in an unsafe condition, and should be repaired at once.
It was in contemplation to pull down some of these asylum buildings and reconstruct on a
better plan, and with a view to the acquisition of greater space and accommodation; but
I am of opinion that with substantial repairs to the superintendent's house, and annual petty
repairs to the other buildings, additional accommodation is not now needed, if, as contem-
plated and recommended by Dr. Payne and myself, the majority of soldier insanes are sent
from the provinces to the most ready port for embarkation, Bombay. As a rule, I think
the provisioning at this asylum has been as good as can be expected. Occasionally the con-
tractor has had his meat condemned, and I had occasion only recently to make a remark in
the visitors' book which was adverse to the meat supplier; but I quite think that the inmates
are well fed, and well clothed also.