ARMY REFORM.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIE,—It having been decided in a certain Volunteer battalion whose headquarters are within two hours of London to adopt the "Service uniform," your readers may be interested to hear how this simple change of dress has to be effected. It appears that it is necessary for each corps to submit a specimen of the tailor's interpretation of the official specification, and in the battalion to which I belong this was done on January 10th last. It so happens that our contractor's factory is quite close to the War Office, so that at first sight it looks as if the pro- cess of settling the matter would be convenient and expe- ditious. But one of the benefits of the new army corps system is decentralisation, and accordingly the process was as follows. When the tailor's interpretation of the regulation specification was made, it had to be sent to our regimental headquarters. It was thence sent over to the regimental district office, and from thence again for examination by the Southern District Staff at Portsmouth. When the critics of the Staff had viewed it, the garment once more took the road for the headquarters of the Second Army Corps at Salisbury. From Salisbury it was sent direct to Pall Mall, where it was approved and returned to Salisbury, from whence it followed its retrograde orbit to Portsmouth, from Portsmouth to the regimental district office, from the regimental district office to our orderly-room, and from our orderly-room back to the tailor in London, who when he received it ran across
the road to Pall Mall to consult the last edition of the revised and amended specification. He duly reported in a direct and unofficial sort of way that he was unable to ascertain exactly the number of strands of worsted in the shoulder-knot, but that to save time he had used his own judgment in the matter. Again the jacket started to our headquarters, to the regimental district office, to Ports- mouth, to Salisbury, to Pall Mall, but by the time it reached that place the number of worsted cords had at length been determined, and unfortunately the tailor had anticipated one too many. This was duly set forth in
P-4-1 C. R. II. A. C. A./29/4/12 e
3 o3
C. R. S. D. G./23/3 X V./1f37/272 (A. G. 7 Clo.),
which said that there must be three strands, not four, in the shoulder-cord of our Service jacket. For the alteration in this respect of the specimen submitted and re-submitted, it had of course to take the retrograde orbit once more,—Pall Mall, Salisbury, Portsmouth, regimental district office head- quarters, London. An attempt was now made to get Pall Mall to inform the tailor direct that the coat was approved, but this daring breach of official routine was disallowed, and when last heard of it was preparing for its third, and, we trust, its final, series of perambulations from the tailor's to Pall Mall, and from Pall Mall back to the tailor's, vid various places in the South of England. Such is the chant of a coat. It may be noted that we had resolved to adopt the Service jacket betimes, since in case of emergency there might not be time to equip the men with it in place of the old red uniform they have worn till now. Our decision was clearly a wise one. Three months have sped by since we first approached our tailor, and we have not yet received official sanction to give him positive orders for its preparation.—I
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