nteresting and important
portion of our work. Independent witnesses testify to its reality.
Government officials assure us of their warmest sympathy, and in not a
few cases aid us with their influence and subscriptions. In Ceylon the
Government has treated us most handsomely, throwing open their prisons
for our Officers to visit and hold meetings among the prisoners,
assisting us in the expenses of our Home with a monthly grant of Rs.
100, and encouraging the criminal classes to take advantage of the
opportunity thus afforded them for reforming their lives.

The common reason given for refusing such assistance elsewhere is that
Government cannot interfere with the religion of the prisoners. But in
Ceylon the majority of the prisoners are Buddhists, Hindoos and
Mahommedans, and what has been found to work so well there can surely be
tried with equal success elsewhere! Government does not hesitate all
over India to assist religious bodies in their endeavours to _educate_
the people, and they may therefore well countenance and help forward, as
they might so easily do, our efforts to reach and reform the criminal
classes on precisely the same grounds, offering similar advantages to
any Hindoo or Mahommedan Associations that might afterwards be formed
for the same purpose. At present the Indian criminal has no friend to
lend him a helping hand. Prison officials in various places have
personally informed me that they are distressed at being able to do
nothing for criminals, who, having lost their character and being
abandoned by their friends, have no alternative but to return to their
old associates. If our example causes others to rise up and make efforts
for reaching and reforming these classes, who would not rejoice? At
present it is a sad fact that throughout India the native criminals are
debarred from all opportunities of being reached by the softening
influences of religion. The Europeans have their Chaplains,--the
Natives are allowed to have no one to minister to their souls' needs, or
to bring to bear upon them those moral influences which might, and we
know often would, lead to their reform. There seems no reason whatever
why the following rules, which have been drawn up by the Ceylon
Government, should not be adopted likewise in India:--

General Rules made by His Excellency the Governor, acting under the
advice of the Executive Council for the Government of Prisons, for
the guidance of the prison off