judiciously or negligently administered, so the soldier lives well or badly. In a regiment where the soldier's physical welfare is cared for, the Messing Account book is open to his inspection and he is consulted as to the disposal of the surplus it shows; that surplus being to all intents and purposes his own property, under the limitation that it is to be expended in food of one kind or another. The officer commanding the company puts his signature at the foot of the daily ledger, in token of his verification of its correctness, and of his interest in the well-being of his men. I am compelled to state that in the course of my investigations I have looked into the administration of regiments in which, as regards those details, there is a discreditable dereliction from duty; in which, for example, the Messing Account is written up only monthly, the daily budget, with the surplus or deficit unexhibited, being scribbled into a dingy scroll-book; in which the soldier is never shown the count and reckoning of the disbursement of his own money; in which the surplus is expended in the fashion that gives the least trouble, the soldier being given no voice in the matter; in which the officer's signature is conspicuously absent from the foot of the daily budget. Such shortcomings betray an indifference all the more reprehensible because so little trouble is required to establish a better order of things. What can be done for the soldier in one regiment by good system and kindly care can be, and manifestly ought to be, done in all. The daily 'messing' surplus, varying trivially with market-prices and according as the prescribed scale is exceeded or the reverse, but roughly averaging a penny farthing a man, is differently administered in different regiments. I propose to give examples of the practice obtaining in three corps, not specially selected, but taken as fair specimen regiments whose administration betokens care, system, and honesty. The three corps I cite are 1. A cavalry regiment quartered at Aldershot. 2. An infantry regiment quartered at Aldershot. 1. It is an old-time custom in the Royal Dragoons that the Sunday dinner should be better than the week-day dinner. On the week-day the cavalry man is for the most part at work in the afternoon as well as in the morning, and does not care to eat a heavy dinner. The week-day dinners in the Royals are nevertheless fairly varied— to-day roast, to-morrow bake, next day meat pies, with not infrequent additions of bacon, cabbage, and pudding; the weight of a man's week-day dinner may be fairly set down as averaging one pound twelve ounces, of which six ounces are meat. But the bulk of his 'messing' surplus of the week goes to his Sunday dinner. On that day he has a long leisure afternoon which he may spend in tobaccoaided digestion, or in the honestly earned slumber of contented repletion. On the margin is a specimen Sunday budget of the' messing' in a troop of the Royals. It comprises the statutory necessaries, and the additional supplies purchased with the accu mulated surplus shown at the top as 'Balance Cr. These did not all appear on the Sunday dinner table. The butter, for instance, would serve for two days' breakfasts; the ham did furnish forth the Sunday breakfast tables, the bottles of 'Relish' would last well through the week; the cocoa was a substitute for the morning coffee; and the non-edible articles, blacking, matches, and soap, were had in infringement of the rule that the messing money is to be wholly expended in food. In the Royals, not the troop, but the mess (and each room constitutes a mess) is the dinner unit. In other words each mess has the privilege of choosing how its own dinner shall be cooked, and of choosing further how its proportion of the common 'messing' surplus shall be expended. But it will suffice to give the ingredients and quantities of the whole troop's dinner on the day cited. These were: roast 22 lbs. 5 oz., meat pie 15 lbs. 12 oz., bacon 11 lbs. 8 oz., cabbage 18 lbs., fruit pie 15 lbs. 12 oz., vegetable marrow 4 lbs. 4 oz., potatoes (peeled) 70 lbs. Sixty-nine men, then, had for dinner 157 lbs. 9 oz. solid food; each man's share of which was 2 lbs. 4 oz. and a fraction over. Add to this breakfast and tea butter 2 oz., breakfast ham 1 oz., the pound of Government ration bread, and the half-pound of tea bread purchased out of the messing money;' and it works out that each man in H troop on the 9th of September had for food solid substances, weighing 4 lbs. neat. I have taken no account of his tea and cocoa. Of this 276 lbs. of solids, constituting the whole troop's fare for the day, the Government ration amounted to barely 95 lbs.; the balance was paid for wholly out of the soldier's supplementary contribution of 34d. per man per day. The variety and quantity of another Sunday dinner in the Royal Dragoons come out forcibly in the page for the 22nd of July, which I have copied from the diary (Army Book 152) kept and signed by the sergeant-cook, and countersigned by the regimental quartermaster. The table displays the fare of the whole regiment. FIRST ROYAL DRAGOONS REGIMENT. STATEMENT of the Cooking done this day, 22nd July, 1888. ARMY BOOK 152. The weight of this varied and solid repast, partaken of by 486 men, was 1,033 lbs. 10 oz., which figures give a dinner-ration per head, the regiment through, of 2 lbs. 2 oz. and a fraction. Adding to this the 1 lb. of Government ration bread, and the lb. of tea bread paid for by the 'messing' (and setting aside any 'messing' extras had for breakfast), the weight of a Royal Dragoon's food for the Sunday in question amounted in dry solids' to 3 lbs. 10 oz. In the 4th Battalion, the King's Royal Rifle Corps (the old 60th Rifles), as in most, if not all, infantry regiments, the company is the dinner unit; in other words, the day's fare is uniform and uniformly cooked throughout the company, but each company may have a different menu. It is not the practice in the Rifle battalion to accumulate a surplus towards the Sunday dinner, but to spend it day by day as it arises. Here are the menus for each company for Tuesday the 28th August last, a day taken at random: A. Baked meat, potatoes, and plain suet pudding. B. Baked meat, potatoes, cabbage, and bacon. C. Curry stew, rice, and steamed potatoes. D. Roast beef and steamed potatoes. E. Baked meat, potatoes, and suet pudding. F. Roast meat, steamed potatoes, haricot beans, and bacon. G. Curry stew, rice, and steamed potatoes. H. Baked meat, potatoes, and cabbage and bacon. Average cooked weight of dinner per man not under 2 lbs. Suppose we take the dinners of A company for the week beginning the 26th of August: Sunday.-Baked meat, potatoes, rice pudding. Tuesday.-Baked meat, potatoes, and plain suet pudding. Average not under 2 lbs. per man per day. In addition to which fare the surplus afforded the company 7 lbs. of butter for breakfast every second day. In proof that the weight of the average individual dinner is not over-estimated, I cite the following statement of the cooking for the battalion on an average week-day : ARMY BOOK 152. FOURTH BATT. KING'S ROYAL RIFLE REGIMENT. STATEMENT of the Cooking done this day, 25th September, 1888. The sum of this meal is 1,398 lbs. ; 635 men partook of it, and the weight of each man's portion works out a fraction over 2 lbs. VOL. XXIV.-No. 142. 3 L 3 oz. Adding bread 1 lb. 8 oz. the day's provender of a Rifleman on the 25th of September last was: weight in dry solids, 3 lbs. 11 oz., apart from morning butter and the nutriment in his tea and coffee. Of this quantity, 6 oz. meat and 1 lb. bread=1 lb. 6 oz., was Government ration; for the remaining 2 lb. 5 oz. the soldier paid out of his messing money.' The 2nd Battalion,' the Border Regiment, has to feed with drafts its 1st battalion, on service in India, and its companies are thus subject to abrupt and great diminution. The 'messing' surplus of a weak company must in the nature of things be smaller than that of a strong company. An ounce of tea may make fairly good tea for six people, but water bewitched' would be the portion of the lone unfortunate condemned to make the poor best of oz. Heaven is with the big battalions in the cook-house as in the battle-field. A weak company must swell the scale of its necessaries' budget, and its surplus of course suffers proportionately. Yet I am pleased to have it in my power to show that, thanks to good administration, a weak company in the Border Regiment may live fairly well, spite of its depleted ranks. The Company has a strength of but 35 men, whose daily 'messing' at 34d. amounts to The daily necessaries '-tea, coffee, sugar, tea bread (18 lbs.), potatoes (42 lbs.), and milk-cost. Leaving as daily surplus the pittance of d. 10 21 7 7 2 7 Let us take at random four successive dinners and see how the company with the thin ranks contrives to keep body and soul together : 71 14 total weight of dinner 70 2 total weight of dinner 1 Gone abroad since this article was written. |