famine about a month ago, when, as I reported, water was sold to the poor at prices which rose five to ten cents a bucket. To avoid paying these rates they were using water unfit for consumption, and had even, as the Surveyor General informed me, taken up stones of sewers to get at covering water trickling into them. I had grave fears at one time that some outbreak of epidemic would result. The absolute necessity of completing these Water-works as soon as possible was clearly demonstrated on that occasion. When these works are completed a considerable further expense, roughly estimated by the Surveyor General at $250,000, will have to be incurred in the rearrangement of mains and in the distribution of the water to parts of the City where there is an insufficient supply, or there is none at all at present. I agree then with the Committee that the construction of a new Gaol cannot be undertaken at the present moment.