PRISON HOSPITAL.

Eleven barracks inside the prison inclosure and situated at its southwest corner, but fenced off from the main inclosure, are used for temporary hospital purposes. Ten of these barracks are occupied by the sick, and the eleventh as a store-house and carpenter's workshop.

Wards. - The wards are well furnished with wooden bunks in eight wards and iron bedsteads in two (the erysipelas and pneumonia wards). They are not in a very good state of police and are overcrowded, each ward having forty-two beds for patients and attendants instead of thirty, the full complement.

Blankets, etc. - There is a sufficient supply of hospital clothing, blankets and bedding; but that is use in the wards is not as clean as it should be owing to the lack of laundry facilities, washing being done in caldrons in the open air.

Straw. - Much complaint is made by the surgeon in charge that straw for bedding is not supplied in sufficient quantity to admit of the necessary changes. I have had an interview with the post quartermaster on the subject and think that this difficulty will be remedied hereafter. Warming and ventilation. - The supply of food is sufficient, of good quality, and sufficiently varied by purchases from the hospital fund. The cooking is done by detail in the kitchen of each ward. The kitchens and utensils are generally in good order, and the cooking appears to be well done, except in the matter of special diet, for which proper facilities do not exist.

Grounds. - The ground within the hospital inclosure is in very bad police. The location being the lowest ground in the prison what little drainage there is to the camp runs into it, making the ground almost constantly wet and muddy. An attempt has been made to drain it, but ineffectually, as the ground is lower than that outside. In addition to this there is just outside the fence an undrained marsh, which cannot be remedied until the prison drainage is complete, and which will in the course of a very few weeks become a hotbed of miasmatic poison. Every principle of humanity and a due regard to the preservation of human life demands that the sick should be removed from these quarters at the earliest possible moment- at any rate before the hot weather sets in - and in - and in this opinion I am sure the Commissary-General of Prisoners would coincide on a personal inspection.

Sinks. - An excavated sink is still in use and in a very offensive condition. I have directed that it be at once replaced by one similar go those in use in the prison.

Slop sinks. - Slop sinks for the reception of liquid refuse are dug at each door of the wards. The solid kitchen refuse is collected in proper receptacles and sold for the benefit of the hospital fund.

Offices, &c. The dispensary, commissary, and medical store-rooms and steward's quarters are in a small temporary building erected between the two rows of wards and are all in very good order. The main hospital store-house occupies the eleventh barracks and is also in good order. One end of this barrack is also used as a carpenter's workshop, where prisoners manufacture from refuse lumber such articles of hospital furniture as are necessary, but not otherwise to be procured, as spittoons, bedside tables, trays, &c.