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100 Years Ago | 26 July 1918

On this day a century ago, these were some of the news items The Statesman readers got to read about India and the world.

100 Years Ago | 26 July 1918

OCCASIONAL NOTE

One of the most abominable of the untruths contained in Sir Subramaniya Iyer’s letter to President Wilson was a statement that the Indian prisons are “so filthy that often the inmates die from loathsome diseases.” The truth about the Indian prisons is well enough known to the world.

They maintain a standard of hygiene, cleanliness and decency infinitely above the general standard obtaining among the Indian populations in their own villages and homes. Striking evidence of this truth is contained in the latest Administration Report of the jails of the United Provinces.

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During 1917 the death-rate among prisoners of all classes was 13.2 per mille, or almost identically that of the general death-rate in the United Kingdom.

How the mortality of a particular prison compares with that of the civil area in which it stands may be gleaned from the fact that the mortality within the Agra Central Prison, containing a large number of old and infirm prisoners, was 14.6 per mille as compared with a municipal mortality for Agra of 50.27 per mille.

Of 100 prisoners discharged from the prisons during the year 66 per cent had gained weight during incarceration, 24 per cent remained stationary and only ten per cent had suffered loss.

The diseases of prisoners are studied scientifically, segregation is provided for, adequate measures are taken for disinfection, etc., and generally in health as in disease prisoners are treated according to the standards of western civilisation.

The prison record in India suggests not that the Indian population suffers at the hands of the English officials but that only its own inherent conservatism and superstition make India a less healthy country to live in than the most favoured countries in the west.

THE HARKISHEN LAL CASE

In connection with the payment order of Rs 30 lakh passed by Justice Broadway against Harkishen Lal, Mr Dignas, official liquidator of the People’s and Amritsar Banks, filed an application in the insolvency court for adjudging Harkishen Lal an insolvent, and later on filed an application before the Chief Court for the transfer of the insolvency proceedings to the Chief Court.

This transfer application was heard last Monday together with Harkishen Lal’s objection before Sir Henry Rattigan, Chief Judge, who passed orders yesterday rejecting the application for the transfer.

The original application for adjudging Harkishen Lal an insolvent came up before Rai Shahu Mal, Insolvency Judge, today. The matter was, however, postponed as the file had not come from the Chief Court. It is understood that Harkishen Lal had appealed against the payment order passed by Justice Broadway and will contest this application for insolvency.

INSTITUTES FOR MILL WORKERS

The Bombay Social Service League announce a scheme for providing workmen’s institutes for workers in the cotton mills in the city. The League have great experience in conducting social work of various kinds for the benefit of the poorer classes in the town, and in particular started some time ago an institute for the workers in the Currimbhai Ebrahim Mills.

This contains a library and recreation rooms and has a garden. The institute has been a great success, but experience shows that it has certain failings arising from the fact that the workers of the group of mills for which it is intended do not live near their mills, near which the institute is situated, but scatter far and wide after their day’s work.

What is needed, therefore, is a number of institutes in different parts of the town, each so situated as to be in the midst of a locality where the mill workers live and earn, being open to workers because they are workers and without regard to the mill to which they belong. It is estimated that each institute will cost Rs 700 a year.

BANK OF BURMA CASE

Justice Young today passed final orders in the matter of the Bank of Burma (in liquidation) which has been heard in chambers from time to time before on the question of the official liquidator’s (Mr. E.R. Holdsworth’s) remuneration and the advisory committee’s costs, and also as to what final dividend should be declared on the sum of Rs 6,35,708 available for that purpose.

From that sum has to be deducted Rs 6,000 as the remuneration of the legal advisers of the advisory committee in Bombay. His Honour held that the costs of the committee’s representation in Rangoon was a legitimate charge and allowed it.

The judge also sanctioned the sum of Rs 850 incurred by Mr. J.E. Noble, who had taken considerable interest in the liquidation, for out-of-pocket expenses in various visits to Rangoon. In regard to the liquidator’s remuneration, the judge thought it would be fairer to accept Mr. Holdsworth’s estimate and remunerate him for the remainder of his work in accordance with the Bombay scale of rates.

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