After showing at some length the discrepancies and contradictions which proved the whole testimony adduced on this point to be utterly worthless, Mr Howell says:— “Here I leave the journals of washerwomen, and the tattle of their gossips, remarking this fatal objection to each washing-tub anecdote, however circumstantial, that _not one of them goes back so far as to precede_, and therefore to account for, _the alleged first case of the epidemic_, namely, that of Salvador Fenic, who, as we are told, fell ill _on the 11th of August_, and upon whose single case, therefore, the proof of importation rests. And if the attempt to connect the illness of Salvador Fenic with a foreign source be, as I hold it to be, a complete failure, how is the illness of the boy Caffiero to be accounted for? And to what is to be ascribed the illness of Mr Martin’s child on August 16th, a case quite as early as that of Caffiero, and which has not been attempted to be traced to importation? not one of the washing-tub cases being anterior either to that of Mr Martin’s child or to that of Caffiero, both of which are unquestioned cases of the epidemic.” It was essential to the proof of the connection of the “Dygden” with the outbreak of the epidemic, to establish the fact of the existence of Yellow Fever on board the ship. No proof of this appears to have been adduced. On the contrary, the captain of the ship declares that no such disease existed on board; the head of the Quarantine Department, after an official examination into the fact, affirms that there is no evidence whatever to disprove the truth of the captain’s statement, and the Quarantine Medical Officer, after “a minute inspection of the captain and crew,” states that he “found them all in perfect health.” “I have minutely inspected the captain and crew,” he says, “whom I found in perfect health. The reason for putting this ship in quarantine for 40 days was, that two men died on the passage. It is now 66 clear days since the first man died, and 61 since the death of the last, and nothing like disease has since appeared, nor have I the most distant reason to apprehend danger to the public health from any circumstances connected with the ‘Dygden.’” Mr Howell calls special attention to this report of the medical officer:—