2.-Government Liberality in Reference to EDUCATION IN ARRAÇAN, The Government, with a promptitude which did them honor, at once stretched out a helping hand to assist the enterprizing and active friends of education, by a monthly allowance of 500 Co.'s Rs. for the purpose of education. The Committee of Public Instruction are now advertising for suitable men to carry on the work. We hope shortly to announce that the whole plan is in active and successful operation. The very judicious remarks respecting the use of the English language, Roman character and vernaculars, are well worthy the serious attention of all such as are interested in what will really be useful and permanent in the education of the people. To J. C. C. Sutherland, Esq. Secretary to the Public Instruction Cammittee, Fort William. SIR, I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 8th inst. that the Supreme Government has been pleased to assign the sum of 500 Rupees per mensem for the purpose of education in Arracan. 2. In my letter of 10th October last, I contemplated the establishment of a school at each of the three principal stations in this province, at a monthly expense of 600 Rupees, but under existing circumstances I am of opinion that it will be better to have two good schools, one at Akyab and one at Ramree, both very populous places, than to impair the efficiency of these establishments by including Sandoway in the list, that place being of minor importance. 4. Regarding the nature of the studies to be pursued I beg leave to draw the attention of the General Committee to the 5th and 6th paras. of my letter of the 10th October, and although by no means blind to the advantages of instruction in the English language, I cannot but consider it of vast importance that the vernacular should be taught to the fullest extent practicable, that by means of it we may instil knowledge with the least possible delay. 5. I likewise solicit attention to the benefits of teaching Hindustani in the Persian character, it and Mugh being the languages in which all business in the Arracan courts is conducted: the reasons for this are obvious. Most of the Police and Sudder Umlah have been educated in Persian and can therefore read and write Urdá easily; the Umlahs of the Calcutta courts can do the same; thus a ready means of communicating is established in the language most universally known throughout India; but neither party knows much if any thing of the Nagree character, and still less of English. The Mughs are beginning to pick up Hindustani which as being more familiar to European gentlemen and their servants, to the regular sepoys, and indeed to all but Bengalis, they find more useful than the Bengali language, and the Persian character being more simple than Bengali it is easier learnt. 6. Supposing the utmost attention to be given to teaching English I conceive it must be a very great many years before the business of a mofussil court can be conducted even in Romanized Hindui; for although we might in time succeed in having all orders written in Roman letters, who is to read them beyond the walls of the Court? at present many can read Mugh and Urdú, and no one can be of any use in the public service unless he can do so. 7. I therefore consider it essential with a view to immediately qualify ing the Mughs for the public service and enabling them to earn a liveli. hood in an honorable way, both objects of great importance, that they should be instructed in Hindustani, a language which being so easy will not I think materially interfere with their also learning English, and which, when more generally known, will greatly facilitate the means of communica tion between the government and the governed. Endeavours will of course be also made to instruct all in Romanized Hindustani, and in time we may possibly be able to dispense with the Persian character altogether. 8. In conclusion I beg to solicit the instructions of the Committee in reply to my 14th paragraph of 10th October, in which I proposed 700 Rs. for a school house in Akyab and 300 for one at Ramree, and I request the favor of books being supplied at an early date. 9. Three English Masters and one Native teacher of English and Ur dú will be required if my schedule meets with approval. I have, &c. 3.-PRISON DISCIPLINE. The important bearing which prison-discipline has upon the morals of the people must be our excuse for introducing the subject into the pages of the C. C. O. In England the evils arising from the promiscuous association of the juvenile and practised felons have long been felt and deplored, nor in India we suspect is it less experienced; the ease of a jail life, notwithstanding all its discomforts, would be a bonus sufficient to render a Bengali ambitious of obtaining a residence within its walls. The idea therefore of introducing habits of industry is praise-worthy in the highest degree, and the effort proposed in the following letter, and we believe sanctioned by Government, and now about to be carried into effect, has our best wishes and prayers for its success. America has done nobly in the matter of prison-discipline. But we must desist. We hope to have an opportunity in a future number of touching more at length on this subject. To R. D. Mangles, Esq. Secretary to the Government of Bengal in the Judicial Department, Fort William. SIR, An apparent want of system in the management of the Akyab jail hav. ing attracted my attention on my arrival here, I addressed a circular to the assistants with a view to ascertain the state of prison-discipline throughout the province, and I have now the honor to submit copy of the correspondence. 2. It appears that in none of the jails is there any distinction made between the worst characters and those convicted of petty offences; men sentenced to a few months' imprisonment work on the roads in company with dakaits and murderers by day, and sleep alongside of them by night; and at Ramree and Sandoway even those untried are herded with the condemned. 3. All are confined in long sheds without classification, all are employed making roads and ditches, or as scavengers, and all are, as a matter of course, as idle as they possibly can be, and after having lived at ease and cost government much money, they are ultimately let loose upon Society ruined in character, depraved in morals, without having learnt any new means of livelihood, and it is feared fully prepared to enter upon their former evil courses. 4. Indispensable as it is that the several stations should be well cleared of jangal and drained, and the roads kept in order, it happens that from the long duration of the rains and their great severity in Arracan, the convicts can contribute but little to such works during a large portion of the year, it is true that they are daily taken out to work as soon as the rain ceases, but when it comes on again they run to the shelter of some shed, and there they sit chatting and smoking till it becomes fair, which I have known it not to do for more than a few hours in 30 days. 5. The result is that the culprit is neither punished or reformed, nor does he by his labour compensate the Government to any fair extent for the expense incurred in his keep. 6. To remedy this Lieut. Lumsden has, in the able letter appended, proposed a system of in-door labour which for the most part has my entire approval. Captain Williams also recommends something of the same kind, but is less explicit, and Mr. Morton apparently acquiesces in the correctness of the principle of making the prisoners into artizans. 7. To judge fully of the advantages likely to be derived from Lieut. Lumsden's plan however, it is necessary to keep in mind that Akyab is a seaport of daily increasing importance, where there is a considerable demand for timbers and planks, ropes, canvas and marine stores generally ; there is also a great demand for artizans, but there is so much difficulty in immediately procuring any of the essentials for repairing or equipping vessels that the owners never calculate upon being able to do any thing to their crafts here, and generally postpone the thing as a matter of course until they reach some other port: this discourages those who could supply the raw material. 8. It is however indisputable that our forests are crowded with the finest timbers, jarool, saul, toon, ironwood and sessoo are all to be found in large quantities, and even teak has latterly been discovered in some lit. tle abundance; the province also produces hemp and flax, iron ore and perhaps even copper exist, as well as coal and various kinds of oil, toge ther with resinous substances from which tar, pitch and varnish may be made, in short all the requistes for ship-building except workmen are to be had here with so much ease, if properly sought after, that one or two spirited individuals have at different times imported artizans at a large expense and constructed vessels on the spot, one of which, a ship of 500 tons launched here in 1833, is now sailing between England and India. 9. From all this it is to be inferred that if the raw material could be readily worked up, there would be a steady demand for it, and that would afford to many people the inducement to become wood-cutters, cultivators of flax and so forth, and that, were the convicts employed in preparing the raw material for the market, it would to a certain extent aid in drawing forth the latent resources of the country, at the same time that it would admit of the prisoners being securely guarded at a reduced expense, and instructed in avocations from which they might earn an honest livelihood on their release. The produce of their labour would moreover find a ready sale, and the proceeds would I trust suffice to keep the roads in order by hired labour which again would draw coolies from Chittagong, who would consume our agricultural produce, and ultimately perhaps settle here for good and all. 10. With this view of the matter, and adverting to the very little benefit arising from the present mode of employing the convicts, I have to recom mend that working the prisoners on the roads be for the most part discontinued, and that al lmen sentenced in Arracan to more than one year's confinement be sent to the Akyab jail, and there instructed, as proposed by Lieut. Lumsden, as carpenters, sawyers, rope and canvas-makers, blacksmiths, bricklayers and brick-makers, the produce being periodically sold to the public or to the building department, and the amount carried to the credit of a road fund from which all out of door work may be executed by hired labour, no convicts being employed beyond the jail except those required to make bricks and build pucka works who would be selected from the most orderly. As a preliminary to any improvement however, and to obviate the recurrence of the disastrous events alluded to by Lieut. Lumsden, it is indespensably necessary that the jail should be surrounded by a pucka wall, and the only addition requisite to admit of my plan being carried into effect is to make the enclosed area a little larger and to erect a few large work-sheds within it: the convicts would of course assist in this work, but I trust the Military Board will at once be directed to construct it without reference to the extent of labour they can afford. 11. Proper arrangements can then be made for warding all according to their offences, conduct, rank, or religion, and for classing them in working gangs according to their physical prowess and skill in the meantime I have ordered the assistants to adopt such arrangements for effecting this as can be done without incurring expense. 12. Both Captain Williams and Lieut. Lumsden propose a tread-mill; but I am not disposed to recommend it, in lieu I would suggest that the most obstreperous characters be made to work in sawpits, or at a saw-mill, the rapidity with which it would reduce timbers into planks or other exportable shape would make such a machine a most valuable acquisition: I therefore beg that if one is procurable in Calcutta it may be supplied. 13. A pucka wall having been built and work-sheds erected within it, the prisoners will be deprived of all chance of escape, and instead of our having to send criminals away I anticipate that should my plan, which possesses no novelty whatever, prove successful, we may be able to relieve the Allipore or other Jails of some of their inhabitants. An improved system of ironing and feeding the men may also be introduced, and the guards may eventually be reduced so as to admit of our having a European overseer attached as Jailer and superintendent of public works. The Jail at Ramree and Sandoway will moreover be nearly emptied, leaving the more Burkundauz available for police purposes. 14. The only expense I have now to propose is that a monthly sum of 50 Rupees be allowed for six months for the hire of artizans to teach the convicts, the same to be reduced to 30Rupees after that time; the assistant at Akyab be allowed to make an advance of 500 Rupees for raw materials, and in the event of my suggestions being approved of, the necessary indent for tools and machines for spinning ropes, &c. shall be sent in. 15. I beg leave in conclusion to draw attention to Lieut. Lumsden's letter No. 584, and to state that I derive the most valuable information and assistance from him. Commissioner's Office, Akyab, August 19, 1837. I have, &c. VI.-Notices of Bengáli Dictionaries. Which are the best Dictionaries and Grammars of the Native languages, or those best adapted to the different classes of learners? Where, and at what prices are they to be obtained? and what are their several general characteristics? These and other similar questions have often been put to us, without our having been hitherto enabled to give them replies every way at once precise, just, and satisfactory. We have often wished, therefore, for a complete list of the publications in question and a short summary of their respective merits, together with the required information on the items of publishing prices, &c. to which to refer such persons as, on their arrival in the country, are necessarily at a loss in selecting the most appropriate initiatory books; and we have as often thought how very much of trouble, loss of time, and loss of money might be spared them, by their being thus at once enabled to fix upon such as were most appropriate to their objects. Such a desideratum has at length, as far as the Bengáli language is concerned, been supplied in the following index, which we have every confidence has been prepared with care and impartiality. We willingly give it a place in the pages of the C. C. O., and trust some competent individual may be excited to supply us with a similar index to Hindustáni and other native lexicography, &c.-ED. No. 1. A VOCABULARY, in two parts, English and Bongalee, and vice versâ, by H. P. Forster, Senior Merchant on the Bongal Establishment. Vox et præterea nihil. 2 vols. small folio: Calcutta, from the press of Ferris and Co. Part I. 1799, Part II. 1802. In the introduction prefixed to Part I. the equally modest and talented author announced "a Bongalee dictionary as in considerable forwardness." The dictionary, it is deeply to be regretted, never appeared: the more so as the general taste and ability of Mr. Forster, and the extensive acquaintance with the language exhibited in the present professedly "merely temporary work," could not have failed to give to the fuller and more complete one a high character and lasting value. The too modest title of Vocabulary, and the as unassuming motto "vox et præterea nihil," by no means however correctly express the nature and merit of even this compilation. Part 1st, in which the English precedes, extends to 420 pages in small folio, printed in double columns, including on an average of about 10 words to a column, nearly 8500 English words with their Bengáli translation. Part 2nd, in which the Bengáli precedes, on 443 pages, contains an average of about 20 words to a column or a sum total of nearly 18,000 Bengáli words, with their corresponding English. These are very inadequate portions of the respective languages it is true, but then considerably greater than any ordinary vocabulary exhibits. In both parts, too, the words given are the principal and radical terms of the two languages; besides which both include also numerous phrases with corresponding renderings, and Part I. in particular, distinguishes the various applications of the same English word. Thus, under " check," we find the Bengáli corre |