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was in this state at the time of my visit, 5 P.M., what must its
condition have been by morning. A couple of barred windows, high
up in each ward, while in no way interfering with the safe custody
of the prisoners, would remedy this evil, and materially add to their
health. It appears somewhat strange that an obvious and important
matter like this, and one, moreover, which could be effected at such
a trifling cost, should have been overlooked and allowed thus to con
-tinue year after year.
54. Not having travelled previously through Sind, I cannot say
what progress has been made during the past year in sanitation.
This is a subject new to the native mind, and it will take years of
persuasion and patient labour before the people will be brought to
value the blessings of pure air, pure water, and cleanliness in their
persons, dwellings, and surroundings, and be induced spontaneously
to second the effects of Government to carry out the measures best
suited to these ends. Although most of the towns present to the
casual observer a neat and often trim appearance so long as the
principal thoroughfares alone are traversed, yet a very little deviation
from these affords evidence to more senses than one that cleanliness is
a term little understood, and still less appreciated, by the inhabitants of
Sind. Upon inquiry, however, I was glad to find that they were not
given up entirely to the evil consequences which more or less attend a
persistent neglect of the ordinary decencies of life, and which charac
-terize more civilized people. In every town I learnt that the munici
-pal and local bodies entertained a certain number of sweepers to
carry away the refuse and night-soil to a distance, and dispose of
these after a manner which in almost all cases might be considerably
improved upon. In some few instances the former were burnt, but,
as a rule, the sweepings and refuse were employed to fill up hollows
or were scattered on the surface, while the latter was merely thrown
upon the ground in some waste or unfrequented spot; although I should
mention that, at one or two places, I was informed the night-soil was
buried, but even here this was done in a superficial or inefficient
manner. Indifference, ignorance, indolence, expense, and long con
-firmed habit are doubtless formidable impediments in the way of
establishing thorough sanitation ; but until these are overcome,
unemptied cess-pools and putrifying dung heaps will be found adjoin
-ing almost every house, and the people themselves will continue, as
at present, to resort to the roofs of their houses and to ruined tene
-ments for the purposes of nature in spite of public latrines, and the
desultory and spasmodic efforts of municipal sweepers. In the mean
-time, however, whatever amount of refuse and filth can be obtained
through the agency of these persons, should in the case of the former
be burnt and the latter ought invariably to be buried, not in one
large pit where it soon becomes a foul seething mass, from which is
born typhoid fever and other diseases of the zymotic type ; but in
long, narrow trenches, not less than 2 feet deep, one or more of which
should be daily dug according to the requirements of the town, the
night-soil placed along the bottom, and then the earth-filled in and
well rammed down.