their evenings as often as possible in more comfortable and attractive gaslight places out of barracks.

London, Canada West.-When the head quarters of the Royal Canadian Rifles were moved up country from Montreal to this station in July, the barracks were found much out of repair, being built of wood, and not having been occupied for several years. Much appears to have been afterwards done to render them comfortable; but there were many wants yet to be supplied, such as ablution rooms, baths, ovens for the kitchens, &c. The cubic space allotted to the men in these barracks is reported to have been of a fair average for the Command. The regiment furnished many minor outposts and detachments. The hospital accommodation at London is favourably reported on, as having been "good and ample" for the corps quartered there.

To meet the contingency of the augmenting forces at and after the end of the year, extended provisions were undertaken in renovating barracks at stations which had for years been unoccupied, in supplementing accommodation for the military in private buildings; and, under the uncertainties of the future distribution and quartering of the troops, the annexed document of Suggestions for the Construction of Wooden Huts for Barracks and Hospitals," was issued from the War Office.

SUGGESTIONS for the CONSTRUCTION of WOODEN HUTS for Barracks and Hospitals, and for the Adaptation of Buildings for Barracks and Hospitals, in the North American Provinces, which it is desirable should be attended to as far as circumstances will permit.

Sites.

In selecting sites for huts, either for barracks or hospitals, great care should be exercised in ascertaining that the subsoil is dry and free of water; that it is self-draining, or that it admits of being easily drained. Clay ground, or other retentive soils, should, as far as practicable, be avoided.

The site should be elevated and airy, without being exposed to cold winds. Fresh water for the use of the troops should be easily obtainable.

Steep sloping ground should be avoided, if practicable; but if it must be occupied, great care should be exercised in altogether cutting off the drainage of the higher ground, by a catch-water drain, from the area upon which the huts are to be erected. The whole of the ground to be occupied by a hut camp or hospital should be carefully drained by trenching. The site of every hut should be separately drained by a carefully-cut trench about 12 or 18 inches deep; the drainage should be conveyed to a suitable outfall.

Barrack Huts.

Each hut should contain 20 men, at from 400 to 450 cubic feet per man, and from 35 to 40 feet superficial area. The huts should be arranged at distances of twice their height from floor to ridge; and a space round each hut should be paved and channelled for surface drainage.

The huts may either be constructed of logs, or of scantling and uprights, with double walls and roof. If the latter mode of construction be adopted, the space of four inches between the outer wall and the lining should be filled with sawdust during the cold weather; the sawdust to be removed in summer, so that a current of air may pass up between the outer and inner walls.

The floor should in all cases be boarded, the boards being raised about a foot above the ground, to allow a free current of air to pass underneath. Care should be taken not to heap any earth against the sides of the huts.

The huts should have windows on both sides, and a door, protected by a porch at either end, with a window over such door.

Ventilation should be provided by raising the ridge boards along the whole length of the hut, and by leaving a small air space under the eaves, provision being made for closing part of the opening during very cold weather.

It is desirable to warm the huts by brick stoves so arranged as to admit warmed fresh air into the huts. By this means the admission of fresh air

would not lower the temperature in the hut. If iron stoves are used, an arrangement for admitting warmed air should be resorted to.

Any modification in the ventilation, warming, drainage, &c., of barrack or hospital huts, required to suit the state of the climate, will be intimated by the sanitary officer attached to the force, through the General Officer Commanding.

Hospital Huts.

If the hospital be large, the huts should be arranged en echelon, so as to receive the full benefit of prevailing winds.

The floor timbers should be raised above the ground, to allow of a free circulation of air underneath the floor of the hut. The space between the ground and the floor-boards should be from 15 to 18 inches above the ground level.

The distance between two adjoining huts should not be less than twice the height of the huts from floor to ridge.

The space per bed for each patient should be, as near as may be, 600 cubic feet, and between 50 and 60 superficial feet; the space should be so disposed as to allow 5 or 6 feet at least from foot to foot of opposite beds.

The readiest material for the construction of the huts will probably be either logs, or scantlings with uprights. In the latter case, the walls and roofs should be double, with a space of four inches between the outer and inner boarding; this space should be filled with some non-conducting substance, such as dry sawdust, during the winter; but this should be removed in summer, and provision should then be made by suitable openings above and below to obtain a free current of air from the outside upwards, between the double walls and roofs.

Ventilation should be provided for, by raising the ridge boards all along the roof, and by an air space under the eaves; means should be provided for closing the openings, to ensure that the amount of ventilation so obtained is suitable to the season.

The best method of warming is by open fire-places of brick or stone, with chimneys of the same material, with a chamber round to warm fresh air to be admitted into the hut. If these cannot be constructed, iron stoves may be used, but they are by no means desirable; and in any case the arrangement adopted should be such as to admit fresh warmed air into the hut.

The windows should be placed high up, and as far as practicable in the spaces between the beds.

There should be an end window over each door, of which there should be two, one at either end. These doors should be protected by an outside porch about 5 or 6 feet wide, carried the breadth of the hut.

The porch at one end may be used for a night-chair, to be removed and emptied from the outside.

The porch at the opposite end should contain an orderly's room and small scullery.

The most convenient size of hut would be for 20 patients.

Where a hospital is required for no more than 40 sick, two huts should be placed end to end, with the scullery and a hospital serjeant's room between them.

The eaves of each hut should project sufficiently to carry the roof-water away from the foundation. It would be always advisable to provide wooden guttering to convey the roof water to the nearest surface drain.

Each hut should be provided with a verandah towards the sunny side in summer months; and a few seats should be provided for convalescents.

The surface round each hut should be paved with the readiest material, and properly sloped and channelled to carry the water away from the hut. Water for hospital use, unless perfectly transparent, should be filtered. A small detached hut should be provided as a lavatory for convalescents. The hospital kitchen should be placed at such a distance that the diets can be served to the sick hot, and, as far as possible, carried under cover.

In the kitchen arrangements means should be provided for supplying hot water to a slipper bath, and some convenient place for keeping the bath should be arranged.

The hospital latrines should be situated from 20 to 30 yards to leeward. The simplest form would be a small deep cesspit, into which a quantity of earth or charcoal should be thrown every evening; or moveable vessels might be adopted, to be carried away and emptied once a-day.

The accommodation required for medicines. surgery stores, and officers' and orderlies' quarters will be best decided on the spot, after conference with the Principal Medical Officer and Purveyor.

Where marquees or tents are used for hospital purposes, the ground should be trenched to the depth of 18 inches round the site, and the earth thrown on the outer side of the trench. The floors should be boarded and raised on timbers above the level of the ground, and care should be taken to ventilate each marquee and tent by openings, suitably protected, at the top of each pole.

Temporary Quarters and Hospitals.

The Sanitary officer attached to the force is required under the regulations to inspect and report on the state of all buildings to be temporarily occupied as barracks or hospitals, and to report to the Quartermaster-General all improvements required to make them suitable for troops or sick.

The Sanitary officer will indicate in each instance the number of troops or of sick which every building ought to contain. But, as a general rule, every soldier should have at least 600 cubic feet, and every patient 1,200 cubic feet of space in every permanent barrack or hospital, and in every building temporarily appropriated for barrack or hospital purposes.

The Engineer officers will be expected to devise and see to the execution of all works which the officer commanding may authorize for giving effect to the recommendations of the Sanitary officer.

Great care must be exercised in examining the drainage of all such buildings, so as to ascertain whether there are cesspits, imperfect sewers, or other sources of foul air. And such arrangements must be made, and such engineering works must be carried out, for the periodical removal of refuse, for the construction, repair, and flushing of sewers and drains, as well as for the construction of water-closets and privies, as will prevent the air in the wards or rooms from becoming infected.

Proper arrangements must be made for ventilating and warming wards and rooms, for providing ablution and bath accommodation, water supply, and the means of cooking and washing.

The alterations required for stores, surgeries, &c., must be made.
J. F. BURGOYNE,

War Office, December 18, 1861.

Insp.-Gen. of Fortifications.

NOTE. In all cases where it is not otherwise inconsistent with the requirement of the service, or with sanitary conditions, sites for encampment should be selected on Government reserves.

BERMUDA.

The sanitary circumstances of this virtually remote and, to the soldier, very monotonous station, varied little this year from those conditions which characterise it in respect of ordinary years, when a balance of healthiness is struck between the enervating, and, it may be said, tropical temperature of one-half the year, and a season the most bland and temperate which usually endures from December to March. The months of this latter period repair favourably the lowered energies of all, and complete the convalescence of those who may have suffered from the autumnal fevers of the climate.

Although the year under review was, generally speaking, one of the healthiest, the fact of 13 deaths, in a total strength averaging 1,013 only, seems so much an excess, looking to preventible disease, as to have called for the

following relative remark of the Principal Medical Officer, Surgeon-Major

Mure:

"I have only to offer the suggestion, that the authorities should give every assistance and facility possible to the soldier's having the means of rational amusement, so as to wean him from drunkenness, for, although there has been little sickness this year, yet the mortality tables show a melancholy fact that, without any exception, every death (one of phthisis pulmonalis, perhaps, excepted) has in a more or less degree been directly, or indirectly, caused by dissipated habits."

Advocacy has been often, in strong appeal, made for the interests of this mind-wearying station of soldiers, in order that every encouragement through comfort in their barracks (a state still sadly deficient), pleasing and healthy recreations, mental and physical, should be afforded, to relieve the embarrassment of idle hours, which are, otherwise, only sacrificed to dramdrinking and concomitant debauchery.

Some efforts would appear to have been made this year to meet so positively required an object, however partial they yet be. A new reading-room and library were expected to be finished very soon for the men, and an additional skittle-ground, to be attached to it, is advised by the Principal Medical Officer, who also proposes that both alleys should be roofed over, a necessary measure of protection for two-thirds of the year.

The sanitary measure of encamping the troops, in part, must be looked on as an accepted annual necessity under the limited and defective barrack accommodation. The general arrangements of the year, however, appear to have been such as to give about 500 cubic feet of breathing space, on average, to men in barrack-rooms, whilst in hospital the accommodation amounted to the statute (1,500 feet) of the new regulations-a circumstance, as Dr. Mure states, entirely derived from the health of the troops having been so good, for, if any considerable excess of admissions had taken place, crowding must have been the consequence, or recourse had to hospital marquees.

A good sanitary improvement had been effected at the Royal Barracks, St. George's, in creating increased ventilation by means of Venetian shutters inserted in the upper third of all the external doors, securing circulation of air across the rooms, and defeating its prevention at any time.

Increased facilities for ablution were, at several points, still great desiderata.

Extended means of varied cooking were also much wanted, for, although ovens and baking-tins had been provided, wood, the staple fuel, was not adequately supplied, but lapsed into a subject of representation and a circle of subsequent correspondence as to its being granted in sufficiency.

Provisions: Meat imported from Nova Scotia, or the States of America, gave satisfaction; vegetables, however, in sufficiency, were often a precarious product.

The light summer clothing now in general use by the troops has been pronounced very suitable for the climate.

The

Considerable improvements had been effected in several parts of the barrack drainage at St. George's and at Hamilton (the post of a detachment). surface drains connected with the hired barrack buildings at the latter place were intended to be run into a deep one, and this carried into the sea: a substantial improvement this will be.

Adverting to the monotony of life at the post of Ireland Island, and the occurrence of two suicides there this year, the Principal Medical Officer looked with satisfaction to an expressed intention of relieving this detachment at shorter intervals.

JAMAICA.

The force in this Island consisted of 1,400 rank and file, of whom 635 were White troops, and 765 Black troops.

Dr. O'Flaherty, the Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, gives in his Report the following statement, exhibiting the mean temperature at the Upland and Lowland stations, the daily range at each place, and the differences between 1861 and the preceding year.

The heat register for the year differed little from that of the preceding one, but a much greater fall of rain is reported, and it is recorded to have spread over a longer period of days than in 1860.

At the Hill Station, Newcastle, sanitary improvements were effected, although some urgent ones were required, and stood over. The barracks, hospital, and officers' quarters underwent painting inside and out; new latrines for the men were completed, and the cesspit system, although still retained, was greatly improved from its previous rude state by means of trapping. A new lavatory and bath-room were provided for the regimental hospital, and a baking-oven for its kitchen.

There were still required ovens for the barrack kitchens, but which have been promised; a new lavatory shed and bath place were wanted, in addition to those already erected; the surface drainage of the station, also, required repairs, and an extension of it was desirable.

At Up Park Camp new latrines for the men were completed, the barracks and the hospital were painted internally, and the kitchens underwent repairs. More lavatory accommodation was required, and further surface drainage.

At Spanish Town several improvements took place, with regard to the hospital more particularly, glass windows having been introduced, and defended by sun shades. Other improvements were arranged in outlay for the ensuing

year.

At Port Royal barracks and hospital, as also at Kingston barracks, painting inside (apparently the periodic measure falling generally due this year) was carried out.

As a general provision throughout the stations, the means of more varied cooking, and a supply of ovens, were anticipated; and the introduction of glazed windows for the hitherto open frame-work ones, throughout the barracks, will prove a great sanitary amelioration.

Adverting to the rationing of the troops, the Principal Medical Officer reports that fresh beef (1 lb.) was issued to white and black on five days of the week, a similar quantity of salt meat (beef and pork alternately) on the other two. A pound of commissariat bread formed another portion of the soldier's daily ration, groceries and any extra articles being purchased by the several messes on regimental arrangement.

Dr. O'Flaherty would have preferred that the troops were supplied with fresh meat every day of the week, and which he thinks could be procured at