The Press.
London, England, 1856-11-01 00:00:00

that, not only did regimental officers expe-
rience no difficulty in getting their requisi-
tions signed, but that, whenever they had
horses for transport, they never failed to get
the goods. The form of procedure was as
follows :

Suppose that the 49th Regiment required 300 great-
coats, the Assistant Quartermaster• General of the division
would come to the Quartermaster-General's office and
present the following simple requisition :
"Required for the 49th Regiment 300 great-coats."
(Sigurd by the Lieutenaut•Colonel of the Regiment.)

Hereupon the officer attending to this brunch of
the Quartermaster General's office would look to his
account of the great-coats then lying available in the
commissariat storehouse to see whether this requisition
by the 49th Regiment could be acceded to without injus-
tice to other corps. The officer would not raise any
question upon the fact that great coats were really wanted.
On the contrary, he would assume, on seeing the requisi-
tion by the lieutenant colonel, that the want existed, and
he would oily have to determine whether the supplies
ware such that the want could be met. This he would deter.
mine instantly, for the books in the office, corrected from
d ty to day upon the footing of the returns furnished by the
clinmissanat storekeepers, showed at a glance the quantity
o' any particular stores which might be available at the
time.

If the officer saw that there were stores enough to war-
rant him in sanctioning the requisition to the full amount,
he simply signed his name, and the requisition then be-
othie a complete authority for the delivery of the stores in
question, and the commissariat officer delivered them
accordingly upon the presentation of the " approved re-
quisition."
If the quantity of the supplies warranted only a partial
trimpliance with the demand, the requisition would be
i.ninediately altered, and sanction given for the reduced
quantity.
If the state of the supplies were such that the requisi-
tion could not he complied with to any extent, the sanction
of the department would, of course, be altogether withheld.
The whole process, whether of approving, reducing, or
disapproving the requisition, would occupy much less
time that it has taken me to describe it.

The question, we should remember, is not
whether the established system was the best
possible, but whether, such as it was, it was
administered to the best advantage It cer-
tainly seems to us that the power of granting
requisitions might very well reside in the
same department which superintends the
issue of the articles required. But all that
Sir Richard had to do was to make the best of
the system ; and he and Lord Raglan together
stripped it of as much formality, and rendered
it as little circuitous, as was compatible with
its existence at all :
I had perceived that if the duties of this sub-department
were performed with strictness, it would, from its very
nature, have a tendency to check the issue of the supplies
in question. I knew, also, that my vocations constantly
drawing me to distant parts of the camp, it might often be
i epos/1.61e to obtain my immediate decision upon a doubt-
ill question, and that thus a requisition, substantially
right, !night be so baffled and delayed as to occasion unne-
sasary difficulties.
I knew also that in the then overworked state of every
soldier, the mere labour of going down from camp to
snake a fruitless requisition was in itself a great evil.
In these circumstances, I took upon myself to act
thus:—l authorised the officer in charge of the sub•de•
part:nent to approve all the requisitions upon his own
Judgment, but I directed that no requisitions should ever
be refused without a personal reference to me.
I am not aware of any instance in which this, my direc-
tion, was disobeyed; and, indeed, the Report does not
state that any particular requisition was ever refused.
• • • •

The War-office form of requisition for obtaining a new
great-coat is of a must elaborate description. It has two
scheaule; or returns annexed to it, and it must be filled
up and signed iu duplicate.
Altogether the blanks to be filled up amount to no less
than twenty-four, which must be all tilled up before one
great-coat can be drawn.

I produce a copy of the War-office form.
Lord Raglan dispensed with this at once, and substi-
tuted a form containing only these words—

" Required for Regiment.
" Quartermaster• General's Office."
People are marvellously apt to forget the
patent fact that it is the abuse of routine,
and not the thing itself, which is pernicious.
What great undertaking could go on without
it? If rules were laid aside whenever they
did not suit a particular case, there would
shortly be a general scramble. Had there
been no routine in the Crimea, some com-
panies would have got three coats per back,
and others have gone literally naked. But it
is useless to dwell on such a glaring truism as
this. People sat here at home with two ideas
HI their minds--Ahivering soldiers and warm
clothing. But the nature of the copula they
totally left out of consiaeration,—they posi-
tively refused to take cognisance of anything
between them. Whether the soldier was to