§ SIR WILLIAM FRASERasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether his attention has been called to the circumstances of the deaths of Lieutenant General Sir James Lindsay, of General Egerton, of Colonels Middleton and Jennings, and to the mortality and sickness among the officers and civilians employed at the War Office and Horse Guards in Pall Mall; whether complaints have been made at various times relating to the supposed pestilential condition of these buildings if so, whether he will lay Copies of those complaints upon the 180 Table of the House; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Report of the Royal Commission lately appointed by Her Majesty?
§ MR. GERARD NOEL, in reply, said, the attention of the Government had been called to the deaths of the officers referred to by name, and he was glad to be able to state that they were not in any way to be attributed to the unhealthy condition of the War Office. From a War Office Return issued on the 19th of January last, it appeared that out of the total number of employés—namely, 630—there were nine absent owing to sickness. One of the illnesses was typhoid fever, and the others were bronchitis, congestion of the liver, stoppage of the bowels, rheumatic gout, sprain, and a disease of the mouth, During the year 1876 there was only one case of typhoid fever. Complaints had been made with regard to the condition of the building, but these formed part of the Departmental Minutes and could not be laid on the Table of the House; but these complaints had been attended to by the Board of Works, who had in every case endeavoured to remedy the evil. A Committee—not a Royal Commission—consisting of Sir William Jenner and others was appointed to inquire into the sanitary condition of the War Office, and their Report was ready and would forthwith be printed. He could assure the House that every exertion would be made on the part of the War Office and the Office of Works to carry out stringently and effectually the recommendations of the Committee.