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the atmosphere is oppressive and almost stifling. Even during the day, three of the doors of one of these apartments are kept closed, against the remonstrances of the medical men who are among the inmates, and to the utter exclusion of wholesome and necessary light and air. In damp weather, all these unhealthy annoyances and painful discomforts are of course greatly augmented, and when, as to-day, the prisoners are compelled by rain to continue within doors, their situation becomes almost intolerable. The undersigned do not hesitate to say, that no intelligent inspector of prisons can fail to pronounce their accommodations as wretchedly deficient, and altogether incompatible with health, and it is obvious, as we already feel, that the growing inclemencies of the season which is upon us, must make our condition more and more nearly unendurable. Many of the prisoners are men advanced in life; many more are of infirm health or delicate constitutions. The greater portion of them have been accustomed to the reasonable comforts of life, none of which are accessible to them here, and their liability to illness, is, of course, proportionately greater on that account. Many have already suffered seriously, from indisposition augmented by the restrictions imposed upon them. A contagious cutaneous disease is now spreading in one of the larger apartments, and the physicians who are among us, are positive that some serious general disorder must be the inevitable result, if our situation remains unimproved. The use of any but salt water, except for drinking, has been, for some time, altogether denied to us. The cistern water, itself, for some days past, has been filled with dirt and animalcules, and the supply, even of that, has been so low, that yesterday we were almost wholly without drinking-water. A few of us, who have the means to purchase some trifling necessaries, have been able' to relieve ourselves from this latter privation, to some extent, by procuring an occasional, though greatly inadequate, supply of fresh water from the Long Island side.
It only remains to add, that the fare is of the commonest and coarsest soldiers' rations, almost invariably ill-prepared and ill-cooked. Some of us, who are better able than the rest, are permitted to take our meals at a private mess, supplied by the wife of the Ordnance Sergeant, for which we pay, at the rate of a dollar per day, from our own funds. Those who are less fortunate, are compelled to submit to a diet so bad and unusual, as to be seriously prejudicial to their health.
The undersigned have entered into these partial details, because they cannot believe that it is the purpose of the government to destroy
