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[page 50] A. Five and a half years. Q. When did it begin? A. April 1874 Q. What did you understand to be the duties of that committee? A. They are clearly defined by the law. Q. Will you state in a few words what they were as you understood them? A. To go there to visit the hospital certainly once every month, each visit to be unheralded, and to go about among the patients without any officer being present. I was to open the ^letter boxes once a week, or engage a letter carrier to do it, and take the letters home and look them over; and if anyone was suitable to be sent to their friends to whom it was addressed to send it Q. Were they expected to enter the hospital privately, in some of those side doors or by some means without the knowledge of the officers? A. I do not know. It is not expressed in the law that they shall enter by any side door. Mr. Morrill: As the law will be beofre us I think the Committee can judge of what it would require, as well as one of the trustees.