From Brigade-Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel D. SINCLAIR, M.B., C.M., Inspector-General of Jails, with Civil
Medical Administration, Burma, to the Secretary to the Chief Commissioner, Burma,—No. 1038-35M.S.,
dated the 14th February 1896.
I HAVE the honour to submit, with the prescribed statements, the report on
the Rangoon Lunatic Asylum for the year 1895, appended to which will be found
a brief note signed by four members of the Committee of Visitors.
2. I endorse the views to which the Committee give expression in their note,
excepting that contained in the last paragraph, where they propose, owing to
recent repeated changes in the holders of the office of Superintendent of the
Asylum, now that a competent officer has been appointed as Deputy Superintend-
ent, that the charge of the Asylum be made over to the Superintendent of the-Ran-
goon Central Jail. This step was decided on several years ago (vide this office
letter No. 5629-98M., dated the 3rd September last) and would have been given
effect to but for the fact that the officer in charge of a jail with between 2,000 and
3,000 inmates had his time fully occupied. Situated as these two institutions
are, contiguous to each other, there can be no question that both could be most
conveniently and economically administered by one officer, but the duties of the
Superintendent of the Rangoon Central Jail still continue heavy. Moreover, there
is no reason why changes in the superintendentship of the asylum should be
more frequent than changes in the superintendentship of the jail, and, if a series of
years are taken, I think it will be found that changes in the one are as common
as changes in the other; but in any case the services of an efficient assistant
would obviously best meet difficulties likely to arise from such causes. As a
matter of fact, experience so far shows that Deputy Superintendents cannot be
got to remain with any permanency at the asylum on the sanctioned emoluments,
and the present incumbent, Assistant Surgeon L. J. Reilly, has already asked for
a transfer. Hence either the emoluments must be increased, or the appointment
must be filled by an officer of inferior grade, the Superintendent himself giving
more time and attention to the asylum duties.
3. Two wooden cells for the accommodation of violent or noisy patients
are under construction or have just been completed*. No funds* for the further
extension of the asylum during 1896-97 have been allotted, so that the works
referred to in paragraphs 5 and 8 (last sentence) of the Report and in (b) and (c)
of the Committee's Minute are not likely to be put in hand before 1897-98. But
as the asylum is fully occupied, and as three excess criminal lunatics (vide para-
graph 31) have to be detained in jail, it is very desirable that the institution
should be enlarged. The available accommodation and the strength of the various
classes on the last day of the year are given in paragraph 7, from which it will be
seen that the room set apart for criminal males and females of both classes is
inadequate. Though there were only 157 civil males in the asylum on the 31st
December, the daily average for the year under review was 181.44; so that for this
class also more room seems necessary. An asylum to accommodate 400 on the
lines indicated in paragraph 12, page 2, of the Report for 1894, will be none too
large. It might be worth while to ascertain how the daily average populations of
criminal lunatics in the Asylums of Madras (159.74), Punjab (73.98), and Bombay
(107.1) during 1894 are less than the average (159.97) detained here during
1895. Bengal, with ten times the civil population of this province, accommo-
dated in its asylums during 1894 a daily average of only 448 criminal in-
sanes. The great comparative excess in this province suggests the existence of
some radical difference in the method of dealing with this class of prisoner.
The non-criminal insanes confined in the local asylum are also relatively to the
civil population in excess of the numbers confined in the asylums of these other
p rovinces ; but this is explained, as is in a measure the excess of criminal
lunatics, by the fact that insanity is far more generally prevalent in Burma than
elsewhere (vide page 437, Volume I, Census of India, 1891).
* Funds for the extension of the Asylum have, since writing the above, been allotted.