respect to Balaklava, nothing could be worse than the
state of the harbour. No attempt was made to clean it.
He concluded that Captain Christie was answerable for
the state of the harbour, "But, at the same time," he
added, "it always appeared to me to be an anomaly
that the officer who is supposed to have the entire
management of the harbour should be subject, more or
less, to the authority of the captain of any man-of-war
which may happen to come in, which causes divided
authority." He had no complaint to make as regards
his medical or military staff; and had no difficulty
with the commissariat on account of forms. Mr.
Macdonald administered the fund intrusted to the Times
for the relief of the sick and wounded. Before he
went out to distribute this fund, he saw the Duke of
Newcastle and Dr. Andrew Smith. They told him it
was not likely the fund would be of any kind of use
for the relief of the sick and wounded: even admitting
the want of supplies, they said that such want must
have long ago ceased. Mr. Macdonald described the
condition of the hospitals; and gave an account of the
varied supplies he had furnished from the fund at his
disposal. The whole of the purveying establishment
consisted of an old man of seventy, Mr. Ward; who,
dying, was succeeded by Mr. Wreford, aged sixty, two
assistants, and three boys. When the supplies fell
short, the chief officer did not purchase supplies, but
wrote home. The sick suffered from the want of
necessaries, but there was no one to order them to be
purchased. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had the power of
making purchases; but, for some reason, it was not
used. The medical authorities did not apply to the
ambassador; and the blame of not having sufficient
supplies rested with them, as they knew where to obtain
what was wanted, and could have obtained it much
more easily than Mr. Macdonald. The great failure
was in the purveyor's department. If a man wanted a
shirt, for instance, a requisition was written for a shirt,
and taken to the purveyor; who would say, "there
is no such article in store," or "call again to-morrow."
Miss Nightingale would then be applied to, and she
found means of supplying it. Dr. Menzies was at the
head of the hospital department when he arrived; but
there was no real head—no one who would take
responsibilities on himself, until the arrival of Dr.
Cumming.

On Thursday, the 15th, the Earl of Lucan was
examined, and his evidence occupied the entire sitting.
—In command of the cavalry division, Lord Lucan had
the state of the horses prominently before him. From
the outset there was a deficiency in the commissariat
arrangements. Arriving in May at Kululee Barracks,
within four miles of Scutari, he found two inexperienced
young gentlemen—Mr. Murray, son of the Bishop of
Rochester, and Mr. Cookesley—both fresh from the
treasury, in charge of the commissariat. There was no
hay. In June the cavalry reached Varna, and the
same sort of scarcity was felt there. Lord Lucan made
frequent complaints in person to Commissary-General
Filder and the quartermaster-general; but matters
were not mended, and latterly he communicated only
by letter, and kept copies in a book, deeming it the
"safer" course. He had to employ an aide-de-camp to
discharge as he best could the duties which ought to
have been discharged by the commissariat.—Arrived at
Balaklava, matters became worse. For about three
weeks the supply of fodder was pretty regular; but it
consisted of barley, which did not agree with the
horses. No hay was delivered till the end of October,
and the supplies soon fell off. While the horses were
suffering and dying, there were immense quantities of
hay at Balaklava; it was not landed, but was carried to
and fro from port to port. Quantities too, were floating
about in the harbour. All this misconduct Lord Lucan
attributed to the commissariat. In consequence of a
visit he paid to General Canrobert, the French general
undertook to lend the English cavalry under his
lordship's command thirty days' forage of chopped straw.
This was done; but the French becoming short of the
article themselves, complained that the loan had not
been repaid. To short provisions, excessive labour in
doing the work of the transport service was superadded;
and the horses died in great mumbers. On the 17th
January, Lord Lucan wrote to the adjutant-general,
complaining of the cavalry being employed in such
destructive work. An "observation" was made on the
margin in these terms—"Lord Raglan desires me to
observe, that the more work and less food, the more
care." Lord Lucan addressed the commander-in-chief
himself on the subject; remarking that "the suffering
of the horses was so great, that unless a speedy cessation
of their labour took place, the whole regiment would
be destroyed." To this no answer was given. The
men were also badly fed, and suffered much from the
mud in which they were obliged to stand. "Their
appearance was remarkably good, nevertheless." The
cavalry was further employed in removing the sick to
the coast; a bad arrangement as regarded the
performance of the duty. Many of the sick persons had
never been on horseback before, and deaths in the
saddle were not unfrequent. On October the 8th the
heavy brigade had 884 horses fit for duty, and 23 sick
or lame. The light brigade at the same date, had
about 1000; but the men were very sickly; and when
the heavy brigade joined he transferred 100 horses
from the light to the heavy brigade, to make up the
losses sustained by them at sea. On the 31st December
the whole division possessed 1153 horses. On January
31st it possessed 810. Between the 8th October and the
31st January 1100 horses were lost.—The want of nosebags
for the horses had led to much waste of food; and
by this hangs another tale of the transport service. "In
the month of January, the captain of the Jason came to
me and begged me to assist him in getting nosebags and
other horse materials landed from his ship, which had
been on board from the previous May." Horse
medicine too was deficient—the Medway brought out a
large quantity of horse medicine in June, but it was
never discovered till the following January.—When he
took charge of the last lot of mules that arrived, he
proposed to Lord Raglan to form a transport corps, to
be entirely separate from the commissariat. Lord
Raglan wrote him a private letter, thanking him for
the suggestion; but said the matter had been under
the consideration of the English government, and the
officers were coming out. Lord Lucan had no doubt
that he could have formed such a corps from the
materials on the spot. He calculated the weight of
each man's daily rations, including everything, at three
pounds; and assuming each mule could carry 240
pounds, 300 mules would be sufficient to carry all the
provisions of the army from Balaklava to the front.
He also said he could have organised an ambulance
corps in a week.

Mr. Augustus Stafford, M.P., was examined on
Monday the 19th. His evidence related to the state of
the hospitals. He had met with no obstruction at
Scutari. The authorities seemed desirous of remedying
the existing evils. The state of the hospitals on his
arrival was indescribably filthy. There was one
horrible nuisance which infected the place, and made
the anteroom almost impassable, and which arose from
the stoppage of soil-pipes. He applied to Dr. Macgregor
to get those places cleaned out: Dr. Macgregor referred
him to another department. He went to the head of
that department; that person agreed that the place
ought to be cleaned, but he said he had "no money"
to pay labourers. Mr. Stafford told him he had with
him some £200; the half of which he offered to place at
his disposal for the purpose. The committee inquired
the name of the person: Mr. Stafford hesitated to name
him; but after deliberation with closed doors, the
committee insisted peremptorily, and Mr. Stafford said
it was Major Sillery, the commandant; but added, that
he had always found Major Sillery desirous to assist any
improvement in every way. The Turks afterwards
cleaned out the places. Mr. Stafford distinctly showed
that the utmost confusion of authorities prevailed: he
described it as a kind of paralysis of fear of incurring
responsibility for going beyond instructions. It was
impossible to tell where one department ended and
another began. With regard to the landing of the
sick, it was difficult to say who was responsible.
Admiral Boxer had charge of the sick till they were
landed. Now it happened that sometimes the sick got
no breakfast, because the ship authorities supposed they