14
Of caste in relation to marriage, the table gives the following informa-
tion :—37.5 per cent. of the single are Hindoos, 34.3 per cent Mussulmans.
Of the married, 57.3 per cent are Hindoos, and 20.9 per cent. Mussulmans.
Of widowed, 64.7 per cent were Hindoos, and 20.6 Mussulmans.
Table No. 10.—Employment.
There is not much improvement observable in the past year, as com-
pared with the previous one, in the employment
of men. With a daily average number of 417.2 in
1873-74, 154.6 were employed, and in 1872-73, with a daily average of 398.6,
the number was 151.4.
With the women there has been an improvement. During the past
year, 28 per cent. of the strength were employed, the number in 1872-73
being 18 only. See Asylum Report of 1872.
The results in Bengal are so much beyond the best efforts of our most
successful asylum Superintendent, Dr. Wyllie, at Ahmedabad, that it may be
well to see how they are brought about.
In the Dulhundur Asylum, with a daily average number of 276.4 males,
246.8 were employed, or 89.1 per cent., and of women, the average daily
number being 78-69, or 88 per cent. were employed.
The modes of employment are generally the same in both Presidencies
and to produce such different results, it is just possible that the arrangements
of the Bengal asylums, or the character and pursuits of the population, may
contribute to make employment easier with them than it has hitherto been
found to be in Bombay.
The contrasts, however, seem to merit some inquiry. Taking " garden-
ing " as an example, 77 men were daily employed in the one asylum at Dul-
hundur ; in all our asylums 55 men were so employed during the past year.
In " grain grinding " 7 men were employed in all Bombay asylums, and at
Dulhundur 28, and so, generally, through other modes of employment. With
women the contrast is equally striking; 21 were employed in "spinning"
which seems a very suitable occupation, but in all our asylums only one
female was so employed.
It must not be supposed, where there appears to have been a complete
absence of any effort to introduce variety of employment into an asylum such
as would be suited to its capabilities and to those of its occupants, that reasons
have not been urged, and difficulties described. Taking the Kolaba asylum
and "gardening "as an example, it has been urged with much force that
there is neither space nor soil and insufficient water—wants which must be con-
sidered fatal to the introduction of this mode of employment. But I am not
sure that sufficient attention has been given hitherto to employment in other
directions, for which the requisite appliances might be sanctioned by Govern-
ment ; as for instance, spinning, weaving, grain-grinding. Besides " domestic
labour" which may come under the "miscellaneous light work " of the
Dulhundur Asylum, 8 men are employed on basket-work, an employment
suitable both to the asylum and to the men, as requiring neither more space
nor more water. Why cannot suitable employments, such as can be done in
the asylum as it is, and by the patients as they are, be multiplied ? Surely,
to limit efforts to cane-work only reflects on the want of ingenuity and re-
sources of the management.