once the oats had been crushed. While the issue of this particular bread lasted symptoms of acute dysentery prevailed, and in order to prevent an epidemic of dysentery from breaking out the Commissariat were compelled to adopt other methods of treatment. The bread eventually developed into a weighty circular brown biscuit, weighing anything under six ounces, about nine inches in circumference. These particular biscuits were less spiky, and less liable to create acute inflammation. They were issued to the entire garrison, excepting those who had been permitted to draw an invalid ration of white bread, and were preserved in many cases as mementoes of the siege. Although we have food enough to last several months this precaution is necessary, as when the siege is raised many weeks must elapse before supplies can come in. The garrison has been put upon a scale of reduced rations--1/2 lb. of bread, 1/2 lb. of meat per day. The reductions in bread took place in the early part of the year, while the orders in relation to the meat supply were issued during this week. Matches and milk are prohibited from public sale, and the latest order prevents the shops from opening. All supplies of biscuits, tea, and sugar--preserves also--have been commandeered. The shop-keepers and the hotel proprietors, and indeed anybody who can find any possible excuse for doing so, have trebled the price of their goods, pleading that the inflation is due to the siege. Accordingly, meal and flour have jumped from 27s. per bag to 50s.; potatoes, where they exist at all, are £2 per cwt.; fowls are 7s. 6d. each; and eggs 12s. per dozen. Milk and vegetables can no longer be obtained, and rice has taken the place of the latter among the menus. These figures mark the rise in the more important foodstuffs as sold across the counter, but the hotels have, in sympathy, followed the example, they, upon their part, attributing it to the increase which the wholesale merchants have decreed. A peg of whisky is 1s. 6d., dop brandy 1s., gin 1s., large stout is 4s., small beer 2s. In ordinary times whisky retails at 5s. per bottle. This rate has now advanced to 18s. per bottle and 80s. per case. Dop, which is usually 1s. 4d., is now 12s. per bottle; the difference upon beer is almost 200 per cent., and inferior cigarettes are now 18s. per hundred. Upon an inquiry among the publicans here, I was informed that the chief reason for the increase in their prices was to hinder the local soldiery from becoming intoxicated; this sudden regard for the moral welfare of the garrison on the part of the saloon keepers is however, oddly at variance with their earlier practices, and is in reality the flimsy pretext by which they seek to condone an almost unwarrantable act. Hitherto the constantly recurring evils arising from the sale of drink to soldiers and others performing military duties, have been openly encouraged by the hotel proprietors, who, although they now profess a fine appreciation for