§ MR. BRADYasked the Secretary of State for War, If his attention has been directed to the condition and health of the soldiers and officers of the 18th Hussars stationed at Secunderabad, and if he is aware that during the months of May and June in the present year, one-sixth of the whole of the men of the regiment there stationed, besides women and children, have died of cholera; if he is aware that the barrack has been described as being situated in a hollow three hundred and sixty miles inland, surrounded by graveyards; if it has been brought under his consideration that the Medical Commission appointed a few years ago to inquire into the causes of the mortality in our regiments condemned the Secunderabad Station as unhealthy, and recommended that no regiment should remain more than three years in any given station; if it has come to his knowledge that in the year 1868, or early in 1869, after the regiment of the 18th Hussars had been four years at Secunderabad, the health of the regiment was so bad that the Commander-in-Chief, Sir William Mansfield, ordered the regiment to Bangalore, but in a few weeks the order was countermanded, and, as a substitute, the regiment next year was ordered out into tents, and all parades stopped for over two months; and, upon what ground of public expediency the 18th Hussars have been kept in this unhealthy station for now nearly seven years, notwithstanding the Medical Commissioners' Report and Recommendation that no regiment should remain over three years at any station?
MR. GRANT DUFF, in reply, said, he was not aware that one-sixth of the whole number of men of the 18th Hussars, stationed at Secunderabad, besides women and children, had died of cholera. He was informed that the whole number that died was 39, including one woman and four children. The whole number of men was 386. The cholera made its appearance on the 25th of May, and was supposed to have been brought in by travellers. On the 23rd of June the regiment was perfectly healthy. Secunderabad was 360 miles from the sea. He was informed that the barrack was not in a hollow, but on sloping high ground. There were grave- 1315 yards in the vicinity. The wells in the immediate vicinity of the graveyards were not used, but the men were supplied with good water from a distance. Evidence very unfavourable to the Secunderabad Barracks was given before the Royal Commission of 1863, and in 1866 they were reported upon not very favourably, though he was also bound to say not very unfavourably. In 1869, however, a very much better Report was received; for during the virulent cholera epidemic of 1868 they seem to have been extraordinarily healthy. He did not know of any Commission having reported that no regiment should remain more than three years in any given station; but it was not at all usual for regiments in India to remain more than three years in any given station.