REPORT ON THE RANGOON LUNATIC ASYLUM FOR THE YEAR 1893.
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Two other lunatics made unsuccessful attempts to escape, of which the
following description may be given :
(1) In the early morning of the 3rd December, while the female lunatics
were being led out from their cottages to the work-shed, Ma Gyi managed to
get on the top of the enclosure wall close to the well. She jumped down into
the garden outside and, in so doing, sprained her left ankle severely. She was
seen, followed, and overtaken.
(2) Nga Lo, a civil lunatic, on the 19th December at 7 P.M., broke out two
planks in the walling of the cottage No. 7 in which he was confined and ran
away carrying in his hand a broken piece of one of the planks. The Overseer
followed and caught him before he had got far from the gate.
The remarks in the table of escapes show that four of these runaways were
employed extramurally at the time of their escape and that four got away from
the Asylum buildings. The escape from the criminal enclosure was not credit-
able, and the warder in charge was, I think, justly punished. But, unless there
is very strong evidence that the warders from whose custody lunatics may have
escaped have been guilty of the grossest negligence, I should not for several
reasons consider it either just or wise to prosecute them criminally.
It will be seen that no criminal insane escaped during the year.
Now there are several criminals who are perfectly sane, and it is a singular
circumstance that not one of their number made so much as an attempt to
escape.
That the obstacles to escape by the criminal lunatics are far from insur-
mountable is shown by the fact that a civil insane effected his escape from the
criminal section of the Asylum by easily scaling the wall.
The wall of the criminal enclosure is high only in a relative sense; it is not
high enough to imprison sane men bent on escaping, nor are the gates of the
enclosure anything like secure enough to prevent determined men forcing them.
It may, I think, be allowed that the sane criminals in confinement in the
Asylum could escape if they were so minded. Then why don't they go ? The
answer is, I think, to be found in the circumstance that these men hope by good
conduct in the Asylum to obtain their liberty and be sent back to their homes.
It is true they are criminals in the eyes of the law, but they are not habitual
thieves, nor dacoits, nor are they a curse to society, and they look for ultimate
pardon.
By escaping they would not only forefeit all claim to clemency, but being
unknown outside the Asylum, excepting at their own homes and villages, they
would be forced to return to their relatives, where prompt re-capture would await
them.
Convicts who attempt to escape from jails are not deterred by such like
considerations.
Since the Asylum was first occupied in 1871, only two criminal lunatics who
had become sane have escaped.
Unless they are imprisoned like convicts a certain number of lunatics will
escape from the custody of their attendants.
When no escapes take place from an Asylum it may, I am informed, be
safely inferred that the institution is not properly conducted.
Relating to the statements submitted with the report.—The statistical forms
hitherto submitted with the annual report have been recently altered by the
Government of India, and the revised statements have now, for the first time,
come into use. The changes made are not numerous and materially affect only
Statements VII, IX, and XI.
Statement I, showing the admissions, discharges, &c., of lunatics in the
Rangoon Lunatic Asylum during the year 1893 and ten previous years, and
Statement II Return of criminal lunatics for the year 1893 and ten previous
years.—Statement I, which deals with the entire population of the Asylum without
distinguishing criminal from civil lunatics, shows that the daily average number
of insanes in confinement during the year was 254.74, that at the beginning of the
year the number was 265 and at its close 253.
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