D.—2

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6. In closing my first letter on this subject, I also stated that I had been informed by the Board of Trade that they had directed Dr. Eccles, their Sanitary Surveyor at Plymouth, to report on the charge which Dr. Hosking was supposed by Mr. Vogel to have brought against him, of having insisted against that gentleman's judgment in sending the " Scimitar " to sea with the seeds of infection notoriously on board. Finding the same statement repeated in a despatch of His Excellency Governor Sir James Pcrgusson to the Colonial Office, which was the basis of the Board of Trade's inquiry, Dr. Eccles simply and correctly reports, in reply, that it does not fall within his function as Sanitary Surveyor to direct emigrants to bo sent on board; that this duty wholly devolves upon the surgeon of the ship; that his duty is that of inspecting them on board at such time and place as the Imperial Immigration Officer of the port may appoint; and that, according to Dr. Hosking's evidence before the Commission, which he cites, the inspection which took place before the ship sailed was most careful, the best proof of which assertion of course is, that no sign of disease manifested themselves until the ship had been five days out, when the case of the boy Brown, above referred to, occurred. In general corroboration of what Dr. Hosking has already deposed as to the impossibility of discovering the signs of infectious malady in that case, I wish to draw 3 rour attention particularly to the following sentences from Dr. Eccles' report:—Referring to the statement of the Royal Commissioners that the seeds of scarlet fever and measles must have been in a state of vitality amongst some of the emigrants in the depot before Dr. Hosking directed their embarkation, he says, " Possibly so, but no one could know this until the seeds germinated and produced the rashes of scarlatina and measles. There are absolutely no signs of the presence of these seeds of disease whilst only in the stage of incubation, and even when the stage of sickening ensues, which lasts only two days before scarlet fever, and four days before measles, it is impossible to be quite certain that these diseases exist. The rashes alone are absolutely distinctive." In regard to the correctness of this statement, no medical man who has had any adequate experience of the way in which the maladies referred to first exhibit themselves, can, I presume to say, entertain a doubt. In my previous letter I have shown, by detailed reference to the Registrar General's quarterly returns, that the season was one during which all zymotic diseases, but especially measles and scarlatina, prevailed through England to an extraordinary extent, the deaths from the one disease being double, and from the other triple the number of the previous quarter. To detain hundreds of people crowded into a depot in a district where the infection of such maladies was at the time diffused through every channel of communication, would manifestly have been the surest means of subjecting them to disease in its most destructive conditions. To send them to sea, after a thorough inspection, with a clean bill of health, was to remove them at once from the known area of infection. This is what was done. Both medical knowledge and common sense guided and justified the course adopted; in regard to which I wish to direct your particular attention to the statement of Dr. Eccles and Captain Stoll in their subjoined reports to the Board of Trade, which, I am bound to say, I regard as entirely well founded. 7. I must also direct your attention to the great misapprehension which seems to have existed in your predecessor's mind as to the degree of assistance which the Colonial Government has a right to expect from the Sanitary Surveyors of the Board of Trade in connection with their emigration service in this country. Dr. Eccles did before Dr. Hosking arrived at Plymouth, at Mr. Hill's request, attend at the depot and look after the health of the people lodged there. But he was by no means bound to do so. The service was one for which he entitled himself on this occasion to my grateful acknowledgments, and by the discharge of which, lam convinced, he saved many lives and much suffering; but it was by no means one of his official duties. On this point I have to request that you will read with care what Dr. Eccles says in his report to the Board of Trade, and also what Mr. Hill, the proprietor of the depot, says in his letter to me, which is also appended. 8. The position and state of the depot have been somewhat crudely criticised by Dr. Hosking in his evidence; and the report of the Royal Commission and the despatch of the Minister both adopt his hastily-formed conclusion on the subject. I have referred in my previous letter to the state of the weather in England at the time, a circumstance as much beyond departmental control as the germs of the prevailing epidemics. Dr. Hosking's main complaint is, that the depot was damp, and his evidence is summed up in the following passage of the report of the Royal Commission : — " The depot at Plymouth is said to be damp, the bedding in many cases being damp. The situation is not a healthy one. The accommodation in the way of fire-places was too limited, and the front of the stove usually occupied by babies' clothes drying. The depot at the time was overcrowded. The weather was very rainy, and the emigrants going out and in got wet. Colds and catarrhs were prevalent in consequence, and during the voyage the imperfect ventilation on board was also productive of colds and sore throats." The pith of this paragraph is, I conclude, contained in the sentence that the weather was very rainy, and the people going in and out got wet. It was impossible to stop the rain or to treat the people as prisoners, and by consequence to prevent their domicile from being damp. These were additional reasons, I submit, for getting them out of a country where disease abounded, and a climate which was then at its worst, to sea as soon as possible. The criticism of the Commission on the situation and accommodation of the depot is, I respectfully submit, founded on a somewhat hasty deduction from an inadequate basis of facts. I am not aware that they had any other ground for so large and responsible a conclusion except Dr. Hosking's evidence. A careful perusal of the appended papers will, I trust, satisfy you that the opinion they express is not one which a Government should hastily act upon. The depot at Plymouth is, in the opinion of those best competent to judge, and who have had most experience of it, a model establishment. 9. I reserve the considerations of the Royal Commissipn, which are recommended to my careful consideration by Mr. Vogel as "very valuable." for examination in a separate letter. 10. It only remains to me to refer to the direction in Mr. Vogel's despatch, that if the facts prove