MAIN GATE OF SINGAPORE JAIL.
Plate XI.
In 1857 there were altogether under the control of the convict authorities no fewer than 2,139 transported felons from India and about fifty from Hongkong. About one half of this number were localised in the main prison, the other half being employed upon the country roads, the quarries, and brickfields. These were of the third class; the second class men were detailed for duties as Government messengers, punkah pullers at the hospitals and Government offices, and others of this class also as "lookout men" at the flag-staff stations, helpers to light keepers, crews for the Government boats conveying firewood to the jail and brick kilns, and others digging and conveying coral for lime burning.
In the main prison the wards were built of a uniform length of 230 feet, breadth 60 feet, and height of walls 20 feet. The wards were not ceiled, but open to the tiles, with a ridge ventilator along the whole roof. Beneath the side windows, which were barred, ground ventilation was provided, in order to ensure a current of air throughout the whole building. The floors were laid in concrete, and cemented over with "soorkee," or brick dust and cement mixed, and graded to the sides. Each ward was arranged to contain four hundred convicts. All the convicts were in association, separate confinement being restricted to the punishment cells. In each ward were platform sleeping benches. They were raised three feet at the head, and two feet nine inches at the foot, above the floor, and were coated with coal tar except on the actual sleeping place.
Lime-wash was used for the inner roofing timbers and tiles, and generally for the walls, except for the three feet of dado, which was coated with coal tar. Parts of this dado were daily re-coated with hot fresh tar, as we found coal tar to be a valuable deodorizer. To each ward there were four night urinals, detached from the main building and provided with double spring doors. In each urinal there were utensils coated with coal tar, and at every corner iron crates filled with wood-charcoal to absorb noxious vapours. Down the centre of each ward spit-boxes were provided for second and third class convicts accustomed to betel chewing. There was always a night watch of one petty convict officer in each ward, and surprise visits were often paid at night by the Superintendent, his assistant, and the chief warder. Going down a ward at night, one might see four hundred or more of these convicts, each enveloped from head to foot in a "chadar," or native sheet, literally over head and ears in sleep. They were all properly worked, properly fed, and properly punished when they deserved it; so, with the benefit of the two first, and a wholesome dread of the third, no wonder they were soon lulled to sleep when the prison doors were closed upon them. Now, at the risk of being a little tedious, we propose to describe in some detail the "day" latrines in use in this old jail. The information may, we think, be of service to those who have native prisoners under their charge either in jails or police stations in the East. At this period of time, when conservancy has rightly taken a first place in all such establishments, it may be thought by some to be superfluous, but the system pursued by us worked so very well that we do not hesitate to give an account of it.
There were many such latrines in the prison, so we will confine our remarks to one only. The building in use for this purpose was about seventy feet in length and twenty feet wide, and the tiled roof was supported upon brick pillars raised twelve feet from the ground. In its construction care was taken, above all things, to ensure a solid floor "impervious" to "moisture." This was made by first laying down six inches of well-prepared concrete, consisting of pounded granite, brick-dust, and gravel cemented together by hydraulic mortar, then overlaid with pure cement, and after this coated with an inch thick of asphalt. Around the whole building was an open drain, about two feet inside of the pillars, and built like the floor, and carefully graded to the outfall. The walls, pillars, and drains were coated with coal tar, and here and there daily renewed to ensure deodorization. Close to the drain, and at eighteen inches apart, were placed troughs of hard wood two feet in length, one foot nine inches wide, and nine inches deep, with stout handles at either end. These troughs were smeared over with pitch. Between every second trough was placed a box containing about a bushel of powdered red earth, perfectly dry, and in each box was a ladle made of half a cocoanut shell attached to a handle. Two convicts of the sixth, or feeble class, were placed in charge of this latrine, whose duty it was to see that the red earth was sprinkled by those using the troughs. When the troughs were full they were emptied into a conservancy cart with a hermetically closed screw top, and when this was full it was conveyed by bullocks to plantations in the country.
We think we are quite warranted in saying that this was the first jail, if not the first establishment anywhere, in which this dry earth system of conservancy was used. For centuries, no doubt, in India the well-known habit of the cat had been followed by many of the native castes, but it was not until vast numbers of these convicts from India were aggregated in association that the application of the system to their dwellings was initiated, and we think that the clever invention of the "earth closet" for certain localities may have suggested itself to its inventor when a resident at Singapore.
It may be as well to give here the testimony of Dr. Mouat, the Inspector-General of Jails, Bengal, on the efficiency of the conservancy of this old jail, and in no spirit of self-satisfaction we quote his own words "verbatim," which are as follows:—
"Singapore, 1st June, 1865.—I have sincere pleasure in recording the unmixed satisfaction which I have experienced from a careful examination of the jail, and system of prison management in use at Singapore.