( 6 )

" future generations may participate; (2) the large amount of sickness and invalid-
" ing of which it is the cause in the British Army; (3) the large increase which
" has occurred since the precipitate repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act in England,
" I think most strongly that no existing machinery for ameliorating the evil should
" lightly be abandoned, but that efforts should be made in the direction of strength-
" ening this in every possible way. However inadequate in its results the system
" may be, there is no doubt that the segregation of each single infected woman is
" a clear gain of the utmost possible value, a gain to be measured only by the
" extent of her capabilities of mischief.” Surgeon Baker, Superintendent of the
Akyab Institution, concludes his report thus: "The registered prostitutes are
" almost entirely Chittagonians; there are over 40 of this class on the register,
" living in neighbouring houses in a well-known quarter of the town. They carry
" on their business in peace and contentment, and if it be a hardship for them to
" come to the lock-hospital once a week for examination, they give no indication of
" it; many of them are elderly women who, from having suffered in their youth
" from syphilis, are no longer capable of propagating this evil disease. The Con-
" tagious Diseases Act exactly suits them, while they, efficient as prostitutes, are
" powerless to inflict much harm. The question of closing the lock-hospital and
" abolishing the Contagious Diseases Act in Akyab has repeatedly, during the last
" few years, occupied the public attention. The argument in favour of this mea-
" sure is that, in the absence of any proof that the extension of the Act is beneficial,
" it is, from an administrative point of view, desirable to withdraw it.

   " The local Government has during the year specially requested the Munici-
" pality to give an opnion on the subject. I was present at the meeting when the
" views of the Municipal Commissioners were elicited. The emphatic manner in
" which the Native members expressed their dissent to the suspension of the Act
" impressed the meeting, and the General Committee recorded an unanimous vote
" in favour of the maintenance of the lock-hospital.

   " My own feeling on the subject is that the operation of the Act is beneficial
" to many classes of the community, both ashore and afloat, by checking the spread
" of venereal disease, and I say this unhesitatingly."

   The reports of all the Superintendents were submitted to the Deputy Surgeon-
General, Her Majesty's Forces, British Burma Division, for perusal and comment;
his letter is appended.

D. SINCLAIR, M.B.,                     
Inspector-General of Jails, with         
Civil Medical Administration, British Burma.