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There is a decrease in the admissions to Gaol of 136 as compared with 1892 with a decrease in the daily average number under detention of 57. This year the daily average is 458, the smallest daily average since 1877 when the daily average was 395.22.

The number of prisoners admitted to the Gaol Hospital was 272 as compared with 312 in 1892 a decrease of 40. The number of prisoners treated in their cells was 523 as compared with 723 in 1892, a decrease of 200. Of those treated in their cells 119 had contusions, the result of floggings, as com- pared with 181 in 1892, a decrease of 62. From the same cause 40 cases were admitted to Hospital for treatment as compared with 32 in 1892, an increase of 8.

The chief causes of admissions to Hospital are Anæmia and General Debility. The chief causes for the treatment of patients in their cells are Ringworm and Itch.

There were 10 Opium Smokers admitted to Hospital. None died.

There were only two deaths from disease among the 4,010. One man hanged himself in his cell and one man was hanged by order of the Supreme Court making a total of four deaths in all or less than 1 per 1,000 or counting only those who died from disease less than 1 for every 2,000 prisoners. Very few Gaols can beat that in any country and according to the report of Dr. MARQUES, the Medical Officer, some of the prisoners were kept alive by being in Gaol, the two that died were only sent in for one week's imprisonment. One died from Phthisis and the other from Edema of the lungs coupled with General Debility so that they were almost moribund when sent into Gaol.

There were 64 Opium Smokers admitted to Gaol. Of these 10 were taken into the Hospital for

treatment.

Table IX gives the age, number of years addicted to the habit, how much each consumed per diem, weight on admission to Gaol and for the first four weeks of detention. One man smoked 5 mace per diem and had been a smoker for ten years, weighed 129 lbs. on admission, and decreased to 123 lbs. at the end of the first month, he was never in hospital when in Gaol. Another who used 4 mace per diem had been a smoker for seven years, weighed 127 ou admission, increased to 130 lbs. in the first week of detention, but in the following three weeks decreased to 125 lbs.; he was in Hospital while detained in Gaol suffering from Anemia. One man who smoked 1 mace per diem, weighed 126 lbs. on admission, increased at the end of a month to 131 tbs.; he had been a smoker for six years. One man aged 52 had been a smoker for thirty years, consumed 24 mace per diem, was 121 tbs. on admission, and increased his weight to 126 lbs. at the end of the month; he was in Hospital for General Debility and Anæmia. There were 4 men who had smoked for thirty years, all increased in weight at the end of the month. One man, aged 64, who had smoked 2 mace for forty years increased his weight from 80 lbs. to 83 during his three weeks' detention; he was in Hospital for General Debility. Another man aged 62 a smoker of 2 mace for forty years lost 2 tbs. during three weeks' detention, but he was never in Hospital. Now all these men spent from $4 to $12 a month for opium so it is more than probable they had better food outside than they got in the Gaol even when in Hospital. When a man of 62 who has been a smoker for forty years and suffers nothing but the loss of 2 tbs. weight when deprived of it for three weeks there cannot be much harm in this very vicious habit; he consumes three times as much opium as the average Indian opium-eater using 20 grs. of prepared opium against the 6 or 8 grs. of crude opium of the Indian opium-eater. There are very few Indian opium-eaters that can afford to spend Rs8 a month. I see one of the Indian witnesses on the late Commission represented the children being quiet at night when their father was at home smoking his opium pipe but fractious when he was away from home at night and attributes it to the atmosphere caused by the smoke. There

There is no smoke in a divan full of smokers of opium but half a dozen tobacco smokers would thicken the atmosphere of a room pretty well. Neither does morphia travel in the atmosphere any distance as any chemist could tell him. I doubt from my experiments and experience of twenty years and more whether any morphia gets as far as the smokers' lungs let alone being thrown out of them again and so I very much doubt if the vapour from their fathers' pipe had anything to do with quieting the children, in fact I am quite sure it had not. The smoke from an opium smoker vanishes immediately it is ejected from the mouth. It does not go curling and streaming about as the smoke does from a tobacco smoker. I have smoked many hundreds of pipes of opium in my time with inveterate old opium smokers, and I am an inveterate tobacco smoker and have been for over forty years so I ought to have some experience in the matter.

TUNG WAH HOSPITAL.

The number of patients treated in this Hospital during the year was 2,255. Of these 1,625 were discharged, 1,239 died. Out patients 135,608 were treated. 442 moribund cases were admitted to this Hospital during the year and there remained in Hospital 105 at the end of the year. See Table XII.

There were 66 cases of Small-pox admitted to the segregated wards of this Hospital during the year. 25 were discharged cured, 41 died.

There were 2,689 vaccinations done in the City of Victoria, 141 in the out-districts. Total 2,780.

WOMEN'S HOSPITAL.

Thus described on the door plate of this establishment for the past year but mentioned in all my previous Annual Reports as the Lock Hospital.