§ MR. BYRON REED (Bradford, E.)asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is a fact that, upon the arrival of the 1st Battalion of the 44th Essex Regiment at Bradford Barracks in the week before last, it was discovered 522 that there were no quarters available for the married non-commissioned officers and men, who had, therefore, to be provided with private lodgings; whether this state of things is of long standing, and has been frequently complained of by the local Military Authorities; whether the sanitary arrangements of these barracks are so defective and out of repair that a serious outbreak of infectious disease followed upon their occupation by the troops that preceded the 44th Essex Regiment; and, what steps the War Department propose to take to put the barracks into a condition of sufficient accommodation and proper repair?
§ THE SURVEYOR GENERAL OF ORDNANCE (Mr. NORTHCOTE)(Exeter) (who replied) said: During June and the early part of July there were in Bradford Barracks cases of measles and scarlet fever; but the medical officers reported that those diseases were prevalent in the vicinity of the barracks, and that there was nothing to indicate that they had been generated from, or spread by, defective arrangements of the barracks themselves. When the 1st Battalion of the Essex Regiment recently arrived the families of the soldiers were, by way of precaution, placed in lodgings, not because there were not quarters for them, but because their proper quarters had been under recent suspicion of infection. It has been already stated that it is intended to renew some of the out buildings as funds become available.