urprise the eagerness with which every scrap of my own coarse brown
bread, that I might leave over, was claimed and eaten by some of my
hungry, low-caste fellow prisoners!

The clothing and the blankets are also of the very cheapest description.
Of course it must be remembered too, that the food and materials being
bought in large quantities, are obtained at contract prices which are
considerably less than the usual retail rates in the bazaar. And yet
notwithstanding these facts it costs the Bombay Government on an average
Rs. 2/4 per month for each prisoner's food, and close upon Rs. 2 a year
for clothing, besides the cost of establishment, police guard, hospital
expenses and contingencies. Altogether according to the figures given in
the Jail Report of 1887 for the Bombay Presidency, including all the
above mentioned items, I find that the average monthly cost to
Government for each prisoner is a little over Rs. 6 a head.

Now it is a notorious, though almost incredible, fact, that in many
parts of India, men will commit petty thefts and offences on purpose to
be sent to jail, and will candidly state this to be their reason for
doing so. Many Government Officials will, I am sure, bear me out in
this. Here we have men who are positively so destitute that they are not
only prepared to accept with thankfulness the scanty rations of a jail,
but are willing to sacrifice their characters and endure the ignominy of
imprisonment and the consequent loss of liberty and separation from home
and family, because there is absolutely no other way of escape! In
Ceylon the jail is familiarly known among this class as their "_Loku
amma_", or "_Grandmother_"!

India has no poor law. There is not even the inhospitable shelter of a
workhouse, to which the honest pauper may have recourse. Hence with tens
of thousands it is literally a case of "steal or starve." I suppose that
nine-tenths of the thefts and robberies, besides a large proposition of
the other crimes committed in India, are prompted by sheer starvation,
and until the cause be removed, it will be in vain to look for a
diminution of the evil, multiply our police and soldiery as we will.

But I am digressing. My special object in this chapter is to show the
minimum amount which is necessary for the subsistence of our destitute
classes.

Another very interesting indication of the minimum cost of living in the
cheapest native style, consistent with health, and a very moderate