228. In prisons where such an arrangement can conveniently be made, a suitable room shall be set apart where religious instruction can be afforded to prisoners and the rites of religion administered.
229. If, under the directions of Government, Christian services be held in any Jail, on Sundays and on other days when such services are performed, all Christian criminal prisoners shall attend the same unless prevented by sickness or other reasonable cause—to be allowed by the Jailor—or unless their service is dispensed with by the Superintendent. No prisoner, however, shall be compelled to attend any religious instruction given by the ministers or religious instructor of a church or persuasion to which the prisoner does not belong.
230. It shall be lawful for the Superintendent in charge of any prison to prohibit any particular minister or instructor visiting any prisoner in such prison, if it shall appear to him that such minister or instructor is an improper or indiscreet person, or likely to have improper communication with the prisoner, provided that such Superintendent shall without delay communicate his reason for doing so, to the Inspector General for report to Government.
231. No books or printed papers shall be admitted into any prison for the use of the prisoners, except by permission of the Superintendent, and the jailor shall keep a catalogue of all books and printed papers admitted into the prison.
232. It shall be the duty of the minister or instructor admitted to visit any prison, to communicate to the jailor any abuse or impropriety in the prison which may come to his knowledge, on pain of being prohibited from visiting the prison.
CHAPTER XIII.
ON THE BORDER LAND.
Besides the 25,000,000 who constitute the actual destitute and criminal population, we estimate that at a very low computation there are 25,000,000 who are on the border-land, who are scarcely ever in a position to properly obtain for themselves and for their families the barest necessities of existence. I do not say that they are wholly submerged, but they pass a sort of amphibious existence, being part of the time under water and part of the time on land,—some part of their life being spent in the most abject poverty, and some part of it in absolute starvation—positively for the time submerged, and liable at any moment to be lastingly engulfed. These are the classes whose income never rises above five rupees a month, while more frequently it is under four rupees.
On one farm, concerning which we have detailed information, where the rent of the land is unusually low, the soil good and well irrigated, where loans can be got at a merely nominal interest, the cultivators, with the additional help of occasional cooly work, did not average in their earnings four rupees a month, some having to keep a family on three and a half, while if a bullock died, or a plough had to be procured, it meant positive hunger and increased indebtedness to supply those needs.
The fact is that in many districts there is not only an increase of population to be sustained by a constantly narrowing area of cultivated land, but the land itself is deteriorating through the unendurable pressure put upon it. As the forests grow more distant through being used up for timber and fuel, wood becomes dearer. The manure which ought to go upon the land is therefore by necessity consumed for fuel. The ground in consequence becomes impoverished. As the struggle for existence becomes fiercer, the people are unable to let their land periodically lie fallow, so the crops grow lighter. Again, the ryot is not only unable properly to feed himself, but his bullocks share a similar fate. The feeble animals can only draw a plough which merely scratches the surface of the ground. Furthermore, as the population increases the land is divided into smaller and smaller holdings. The struggle against the advancing tide of adversity cannot be maintained. Inch by inch the tide rolls up, pushing the border-landers closer and closer upon the black rocks of famine, to escape which they at length plunge into the sea amongst the submerged millions, who, weary and bitter and despairing, or with blind submission to the iron hand of fate, have grown hopelessly and miserably indifferent.