Warley. This station, formerly occupied by the depôt of the late the Hon. East India Company, was ceded to the Royal Artillery this year. Surgeon E. S. Fogo, of the corps, describes the site of the barracks as being of a considerable relative elevation and about 400 feet above the sea level, the position being on the southern aspect of the ridge of hills to the south of Brentwood, in Essex. The barracks, in their site, elavation, position, and general structural arrangements, he considers to be conducive to health.

The strength of Royal Artillery quartered here was of an average 685, and, with 12 men in a room, each had a cubic allotment of 537 feet.

The ventilation and warming of the rooms were good on the whole; but a representation was made by Mr. Fogo of the necessity for having ventilators placed in the side walls of all the lower barrack rooms, and his recommendation was acted on.

The ablution rooms are reported as being good, but without bath accommodation; a want also brought under representation.

In cooking appliances all was most satisfactory.

The water supply was good; and no exception was taken to that of the rations, further than a desire expressed that the grocery articles should be procured with the rest through the Government agency.

The duties admitted of nine consecutive nights in bed to each man on an average, and the employment of the troops was in every respect conducive to their health.

A large gymnasium had been organized under arrangements made by Mr. MacLaren, of Oxford, and was expected to be brought into use almost immediately.

The cells and lock-up room were pronounced to be satisfactory as to cubic space, warming, ventilation, and cleanliness.

The hospital, with an average of seven patients in a ward, afforded about 1,200 cubic feet to each; it possesses good baths and other satisfactory accessories.

Mr. Fogo's Report, in general conclusion, speaks very favourably of this newly-acquired station of the Royal Artillery.

LONDON AND DISTRICT.

The details given last year as to the metropolitan barracks, and the sanitary improvements effected in them by the Barrack and Hospital Commission during the three years preceding this (1861), leave exceedingly little to add in respect of further progress in such works, the leading measures of hygienic reform having been already effected in regard to the new system of artificial ventilation of the barracks, the institution of baths, and more commodious lavatories, the means of varied cooking, &c.

With

The Regimental Reports, on the close of this annual period, detail little variety from the points instanced in the last Department Volume. regard to the average amount of cubic space per man in the barracks and hospitals, the frequency or otherwise of the night duties, the supplies of provisions, the conservancy arrangements, and the interior economy in the barracks generally, little or nothing of novelty or deviation from the conditions of the previous year is reported."

The Surgeon-Major of the Coldstream Guards has made a more pointed allusion to a great improvement in the health of the men, and as being attributable to the attention now paid to sanitary laws, the condition of the troops being in such respect much ameliorated."

At Windsor no material measures of sanitary character were undertaken; and the occupation of each barrack (cavalry and infantry) was very much at the same average rates of cubic allotment per man which obtained for the preceding year.

At Hounslow, the head-quarters of the cavalry regiment, in occupation to the end of the year, were afforded an average cubic space, for the months, of 488 feet per man.

The old barrack-rooms were undergoing alteration in being heightened, a measure which, with new and commensurate windows, and improvement

of the ventilation, was likely to render them as healthy as they could be made.

The Medical Officer in charge, on referring to the two new model trooprooms, represents them to be well ventilated; but he states his opinion that one grate is insufficient to dry them after occasions of washing, at least, with sufficient quickness, and that it does not impart to so large a room the necessary amount of diffused warmth. Connected with these new troop-rooms, he reports the ablution accommodation to be very good.

The old regimental hospital being defective, and now inadequate to the requirements of the larger number of troops, the site for a new one came under consideration, and the question was referred to the Director-General, who pronounced his opinion that it should be selected within the barrack enclosure, and that the piece of open ground used as the barrack-master's garden would be well adapted.

COLCHESTER CAMP AND THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF ENGLAND.

The health of the troops at the camp (a large proportion of them being soldiers invalided from India, and young recruits) is reported by the Senior Medical Officer to have been good during the year; and, excepting pulmonary affections, to which the climate of this part of England may predispose, no serious disease prevailed to any extent.

The hygienic arrangements of the camp are pronounced to have been, in general, excellent. Occasionally the barrack huts were occupied to their full regulated number of 24 men-an objectionable restriction of cubic space being the consequence-but this necessity was rare, and 16 inmates to each hut was the rate of more usual allotment: thus the sanitary results became, on the aggregate, very satisfactory; and the mean monthly cubic accommodation for the two depôt battalions, comprising a strength of about 2,000 men, reached to nearly the new regulated standard for huts, of 400 feet per man in the annual average.

The facilities for the men's ablutions continued ample. Variety of cooking, however (and as adverted to in passing remark in the Report of the previous year), has been again represented very much a dead letter, to which sundry circumstances tend, as some extra expense to the men for baking flour, a limited coal allowance (in the hands of inexpert cooks), and the long habituation of soldiers to soup, leading them to prefer it in cold weather more particularly.

The conservancy arrangements of the camp were steadily fulfilled, the contents of latrines, ashpits, &c., being, under contract, carted away each night.

The only evil of any sanitary magnitude, complained of, appears to have been the condition of the surface drainage; and it was experienced to be defective, partly owing to the level of the camp area, and, in certain respect, the Senior Medical Officer appeared to think, to inequalities of the soil; also, in some measure, to insufficient slope towards, and narrowness of, the channels which empty themselves into the deep drains executed this year, and in which he conceived the current not to be sufficiently operative. Much of this, no doubt, would be found remediable.

Meanwhile no zymotic influences arose, to injure the health of the troops, from this source, and the drawback was more simply one of inconvenience and discomfort in times of wet weather.

Light duties and exercises of military instruction had full effect in keeping the men in health, and a round of from six to eight successive nights in bed told well in their favour.

The canteen system here, under a good contract, is specially noticed in the Reports as now excellent, the buildings being the only ones in the camp lighted with gas; their ventilation and warming being also good. These are points of no ordinary sanitary policy, to attract the men from otherwise resorting to the low and vicious grog-shops of the town.

The sections of the Reports on the camp hospital establishment add little or nothing of a variety in its condition from that of the previous year. The

ample cubic accommodation at disposal in these huts was greatly in favour of the recovery of the sick, the mean monthly space per patient rating at about 1,000 cubic feet.

Of the deaths under hospital treatment, only two are instanced as having arisen of the miasmatic order; but pulmonary consumption appears to have numbered as many as ten, whether specially developed by local climatic causes not being positively alleged in the Sanitary Reports.

Of the two stations in the Eastern District-Norwich and Ipswich-both were occupied, as in 1860-the former by the head-quarters of a cavalry regiment, the latter by a squadron of the same corps.

At both places the circumstances of occupation were very much those detailed in the previous Report, as to the available cubic space in the barracks, and in regard to the general sanitary conditions of their localities and precincts. In like manner it may be reported of the respective hospitals.

No material measures of sanitary character were in hand at either station.

THE CENTRAL AND THE MANCHESTER DISTRICTS.

Reference to the Annual Reports, of the several barracks which were occupied in these districts, elicits but a very great sameness of the conditions of their accommodation, for the troops, to such as were specified of them in regard to the preceding year.

In the former (the Midland) district no material improvements or alterations of a sanitary respect were made in the barracks or their out-buildings; and the stations of Weedon, Birmingham, and Coventry were occupied by numbers which, respectively, met with cubic allotment per man, in the rooms, of averages of 400 and 450 feet at the two latter, 650 to 750 having been available to each soldier of a detachment of 239 men at Weedon.

At none of these stations did any local sanitary drawbacks affect the troops: healthy military exercises, provisions of fair quality, and light night duties maintained a good salutary standard among them, leaving in the hospitals an ample residuum of cubic space in the wards for all ordinary wants.

Of the Manchester district the periodical Reports of the year were altogether favourable. The cavalry and infantry barracks at Manchester were occupied by a regiment each, and at the rate of an average of 486 cubic feet a man in the former, and, apparently, from the Return, of 545 in the latter; the hospital averages of occupation, having been 1,300 cubic feet to a patient in the infantry corps, and over 1,000 in the cavalry regiment, speak well for the general health enjoyed by the men of each, in showing that no necessity for overcrowding took place.

At the Fulwood barracks, Preston, the depôt battalion averaged for the year about 800 men in the barrack-rooms, at the ample mean monthly accommodation of full 600 cubic feet to each.

The hospital accommodation here, however, and as usually the case in reference to the proportionately large recruit class of a depôt battalion, afforded not more than about 800 cubic feet per patient, in mean annual rate. The water supply for these barracks was, latterly, abundantly added to by a flow laid on from the public reservoir.

THE YORK DISTRICT.

Great and important additions were made this year, under the auspices of the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission, at York, by the construction of new troop-rooms and stables, to meet the accommodation of a complete regiment of cavalry of the present established strength. The arrangements, in all sanitary respects, connected with these extensive works are well described and practically commented on in an excellent Report by Dr. Fraser, Surgeon of the 10th Hussars, the corps in occupation this year.

As much of structural and general sanitary interest attaches to this new order of cavalry barrack accommodation and arrangement, certain descriptive details may be acceptable on the present occasion.

Dr. Fraser reports the completion of three new blocks of building this year. The first of these is a two-storied one, which is divided into 46 married men's quarters, equally distributed between ground and upper floors, each quarter consisting of one room, 1,920 cubic feet in size, well lighted and ventilated, and provided with every convenience for private cooking.

The other two blocks are likewise two-storied edifices, but the first-erected of these is constructed for the occupation of troops solely, whereas the ground-floor of the third is constructed as a stable, and the upper storey of it for the accommodation of the men. The former of these last two buildings is divided into four large troop-rooms, and four non-commissioned officers' quarters-two of the former and two of the latter on each floor. On either side of the entrance (which is at the centre of the building), and of the landing on the upper floor, are, first, one room for a non-commissioned officer, and then the troop-room, extending the whole length of the rest of the building. Each of these trooprooms measures 60 feet by 20, and is capable of accommodating 24 men, giving 600 cubic feet of space for every bed. These apartments are reported to be thoroughly ventilated, both by well-sized windows on their opposite sides (four on each), and other efficient measures; but the means for warming them appear to Dr. Fraser to be defective. For the latter purpose, he states, they are provided with only one large American stove grate, in the centre of each, and fixed against one of the side walls. If this gave out sufficient heat to warm the far end of the room (60 feet in length), the immediate vicinity of the stove might be expected to be over-heated; this he has heard no complaints of, but the former it is said to fail in effecting. In the case of apartments of this length and construction, with such thorough means of ventilation as these have, he concludes that the heat of two smaller stoves, properly distributed, would not be found too much, and would diffuse a more equable temperature, materially increasing their comfort.

At the further end of these rooms, and entered directly from them, is arranged an ablution-room, added on, as it were, to the main building. It is furnished with a sufficient number of basins, and abundantly supplied with water; but has neither a bath nor any other means for the fuller ablution of the person. It is also provided with an urinal, for use instead of the old urinetub-a vast improvement, yet, here, from the position it occupies in the most distant part of the ablution-room, found not to be so advantageous nor free from objection as it otherwise might have been; every care and precaution, however, appear to have been taken to obviate the possibility of its proving offensive. It is so constructed that a full supply of water may be constantly flowing through it; and, further, the pipe leading from it is trapped. Adverting to the use made of the urinal, Dr. Fraser thinks it must have been over-looked that the men would have, in the night, to grope their way to it in the dark, over a sloppy floor, probably bare-footed, from their beds, and that, being a small object, even a sober man might have some difficulty in making proper use of it; but, as it is, the case is worse when the man happens not to be sober, or is careless and unwilling, and cannot or will not find the trough of the urinal. From whichever cause, a nuisance is frequently found to be the case, and the consequence is that the ablution-room is often in an offensive state. Dr. Fraser had called attention to this objectionable condition, by representation in the proper quarter; and he states that these ablution-rooms would be a great convenience and comfort to the men, if they could only be kept in proper order; but that they form the common receptacle of all sorts of articles, for the keeping of which no other provision has yet been made-such as pails, tubs, mops, scrubbing-brushes, &c., for which very necessary utensils some distinct and suitable place should be assigned. Unfortunately, too, it is found a difficult matter of discipline, notwithstanding stringent orders, to prevent both urinals, and the bath-rooms generally, being used by the men to a certain extent, as a "sink," the consequence of which is, that the urinal-pipe gets sometimes choked with tea-leaves and other matter, it being almost impossible to prevent the men from taking whatever means appear readiest save themselves any extra trouble of carrying further away.

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With the foregoing exceptions of warming, and objectionable condition of the ablution apartments, Dr. Fraser is of opinion that the rooms of this first block of new buildings answer well in a sanitary point of view. They are large and thoroughly ventilated, have a favourable aspect, the range running nearly in a line due east and west, and thus facing a little to the west of due south, by which arrangement both sides receive, though not an equal, a fair proportion of sun-light, so important to their salubrity.

With reference, next, to the third new block of buildings, Dr. Fraser describes it to be on the opposite, or north side of the barrack-yard, both the other two being on the south. This block is on an entirely different plan from that just described, the men's rooms being, in accordance to old custom, over the stables, one long range of a stable extending from end to end of the building longitudinally. The rooms are eight in number for the troops, and four for non-commissioned officers; one large ablution-room is provided, and two store-rooms. Each troop-room measures about 35 feet by 28, is capable of containing 17 men, and calculated to afford 600 cubic feet to each of that number. The whole block is thus allotted to 140 men, including the noncommissioned officers.

The troop-rooms of this block are lighted by two windows on each external side, which serve also in considerable degree for their ventilation; but a free circulation of fresh air is further ensured by ventilators in the roof, and in the walls over the windows-the latter so constructed as to be made use of only when considered necessary, and then very properly placed beyond the possibility of interference from the men by the use of locks and keys. These rooms, Dr. Fraser thinks, are warmed sufficiently, and, owing to their configuration, equably by one "American stove grate." In consequence of the deficiency of the old hospital to accommodate the sick of a complete regiment here this year, he had of necessity to appropriate two of these new troop-rooms as wards for sick, and, from thus having them constantly under special observation, has been enabled to report them as having been always fresh, sufficiently warm and comfortable, even in very cold weather. As to the non-commissioned officers' rooms, however, in this building, he deems them to be disproportionately and overventilated, the apparatus, both in the roof and walls, being exactly the same in dimensions as that of the troop rooms, which are double their size.

In further detail, Dr. Fraser states that these rooms are entered from a verandah, six feet wide, which extends the whole length of the building, on its southern aspect, and serves as a shelter from sun and rain: a flight of stone steps at each end of the building leads to the verandah. Each troop-room is provided with an urinal placed outside of the building, but to which access is obtained directly from the room by a doorway. To these urinals the same objection is not taken as to those of the other block of men's rooms, in respect of being difficult to reach in the dark, as they are so near at hand that they could scarcely be missed even by men not altogether sober. Dr. Fraser, however, suggests that their troughs should be larger, considering how desirable this is for the use of men so careless of their own comfort as soldiers are well known to be. These urinals are similar in construction and design to those of the other block, and, with a constant flow of water through them, should not be offensive; but, though very much less so than the others, still they are found to be so to a certain extent, a circumstance attributed, partly at least, to abuse in the men making use of them as sinks ;" and here Dr. Fraser observes that the men have no excuse, as a proper sink, though at some distance, is provided for this block of buildings, and which is not the case as to the other. Sanitary discipline, up to the refinements now afforded him, is yet a difficulty in the soldier's nature.

To this new block of barrack-rooms (over the stables) there is only one ablution room; it is placed conveniently, however, in the centre of the building, on the same floor with them, is large, commodious, and furnished with a long, double range of fixed wash-hand basins, abundantly supplied with water laid on by a separate tap to each, the waste being readily removed by a simple arrangement; but no bath or means of thorough ablution is yet provided, a want which it is very desirable should be supplied, as it is stated the space in the ablution- room would conveniently admit of its being done. Every precaution is said to have been taken against the possibility of any emanations reaching