8
located in entirely separate buildings and grounds, with a distinct staff of
overseers, warders, and other servants, as well as a cook-house and appurte-
nances all to themselves, it might be possible to define exactly, in every item,
the cost of keeping European lunatics in contradistinction to natives ; but as
it is, we cannot do so. It would, in my opinion, be much more expensive
to have such a separate building and staff than the present plan of a mixed
asylum. Of course, a separate asylum for Europeans and East Indians
would present many advantages in a medical and social point of view.
Taking 242 as the daily average of all the diets, the average cost per head
per annum will be Rs. 237-6-11. Dividing into three classes, according to the
variety of diets in use, the average cost per head per annum will be for the
1st class, having 14 daily diets, Rs. 405-12-4; for the 2nd class, having 63
daily diets, Rs. 263-0-2 ; for the 3rd class, having 165 daily diets, it will be
Rs. 213-6-1. The cost of the diets alone will be Rs. 200-9-1 for the 1st class,
Rs. 114-0-2 for the 2nd class, and Rs. 64-6-2 for the 3rd class.
The above brings out, as near as possible, the daily cost of the diets to
be Re. 0-8-9 for the 1st class, Re. 0-5-0 for the 2nd class, and Re. 0-2-9 for the
3rd class. The 1st class includes Europeans and Eurasians, and the nature
of the diet is the same as that supplied in European regimental hospitals;
the 2nd class includes Parsees, native Christians of all sorts, mixed races, and
a few nondescript people who are fond of changing their character, and
wish to be a Christian one day and a native another; the 3rd class consists
of Hindus and Mahomedans, and the diet is composed of flour, rice, and dhall,
and a small quantity of meat and vegetables ; the diet of the 2nd class contains
baker's bread, tea and sugar, milk and meat, as well as rice and dhall. The
native Christians and Parsees are very fond of tea, and it would amount
almost to an act of cruelty to deprive them of that article of diet.
The European superintendence in the first column of Statement No. 14
includes the medical officer's salary, the pay of the two European overseers
and matron, and the cost of rations to the three latter, amounting to
Rs. 513-12-0. A two-third proportion of this has been allotted to the 1st
class and one-third to the 2nd and 3rd classes.
The sanctioned subordinate medical establishment consists of one
apothecary only and includes the value of his rations, Rs. 171-4-0.
The mode of estimating the expenditure of bedding and clothing
is based on the actual quantity or number of articles expended during the
year and not on the quantity of new clothing received. The quantities
entered in the detailed statement for the two years are, therefore, not the
quantities of new articles received from the Commissariat Department, but
the quantities or number actually expended during the year by fair wear
and tear from daily use, i.e., condemned as worn-out and unfit for further
use, and struck off the storekeeper's books according to the rules of the asylum.
Very little new clothing has been procured during the past two years in con-
sequence of an excessively large stock having been, by some oversight,
indented for in April 1871. Where it is absolutely necessary, as it is in an
asylum, to keep a considerable quantity of clothing in stores, it is necessary,
in calculating the expenditure of the institution, to give credit, in some way,
for the value of the new clothing in hand at the end of the year ; otherwise