The Sun.
London, England, 1854-06-07 00:00:00

DE RE VESTIARIA.

TO THI EDITOR 01 THE SUN.

Sir,—It would be difficult to select a better specimen
of the incomprehensibility of the system by which the
British army is at present clothed than was afforded on
Friday last by the answer given to Sir Gilbert Heath-
cote by the Secretary-at-War.
We have recently been engaged in a long and arduous
contest at the Cape ; many of our European regiments
were employed in it. The climate of the Cape is ex-
cessively hot.
We are at the present moment carrying on a war in
Burmah ; several Queen's regiments are also employed
there, and have suffered severely from the climate, which,
as is well known, is far hotter than that of the Cape.
The Commander-in-Chief of the British army, Lord
Hardinge, in addition to his long Peninsular service, I
has very lately had considerable experience in India of
the conduct of great military operations in hot climates,
and must necessarily be thoroughly conversant with the
wants and sufferings of the European soldier under a
vertical sum.
Therefore, when England was called upon to send out
to Turkey a contingent of 25,000 men, it might reason-
ably have been expected that they would have gone
forth armed, dressed, and accoutred in a fashion calcu-
lated to conduce to their health and comfort in the
climate in which they were about to act.
It turns out, however, that our troops sailed for
.Asian
attired exactly as if they had been destined to garriso,,
Athlone; and now, when your "own correspondent
has given the public and the Government some idea of
this extraordinary mismanagement on the part of some-
body, and of the serious and unnecessary suffering which
it has occasioned, the Secretary-at-War informs the
House of Commons that Lord Raglan, who is serving
in the East for the first time in his life,
is who has been
there but a few days, who must have his time fully occu-
pied with other duties, and who `` at Varna or else-
-where," has been written to, and invited, "as being
on the spot, and better able to come to a conclusion
as to the nature of the materials and the description
of the clothing required for the troops serving in the
East, to give the earliest information of what changes
he thinks are necessary in these respects." If
" early information" as to the best mode of
clothing our troops in a hot climate were really de-
sired by those whose duty it is to clothe them (I know
not who they
are), it would surely have been far easier
to have obtained it from Lord Hardinge, in Whitehall
than from Lord Raglan "at Varna or elsewhere." It ie
the especial duty of the former to send out thousands of
British soldiers annually to relieve and recruit our
armies in the East and West Indies ' • but a few years
have elapsed since he personally shared their dangers
and their sufferings at Sobraon and Ferozeshali, and his
opinion on the subject might have been elicited in five
minutes, while that of Lord Raglan cannot be ascer-
tained for months or acted upon until next summer's
campaign ; and for that reason, possibly, it is sought
for, in preference to that of the Commander-in-Chief.
I cannot think that " the collection of the patterns of
the uniforms and accoutrements of the different armies
of Europe" which Lord Hardinge has informed Mr.
Herbert he is making " with a view to the consideration
of the dress of the army" holds out any very great pro-
spect of advantage to any one. Were such a collection
really desirable, it ought to have been made long ago, and
could now be commenced and completed in a few weeks;
but surely intelligent and practical Englishmen need not
scour Europe for tailors' patterns before they decide upon
a dress for their soldiers comfortable, cheap, durable,
easy to glean, and adapted to the climate in which the
men are to serve.

We have never sent round to the navies of Europe for
instruction as to the best mode of clothing our seamen.
If we order them to the tropics, our common sense tells
us that straw hats, duck frocks and trousers, and open
necks are the most appropriate dress. If to the North
Sea, pilot cloth and tarpaulin. Our policemen have been
suitably attired without any searching reference to
.the
costume of the mouchard.s of France or the sbirm of
Southern Italy; and the genius of our railway directors,
unaided by the contemplation of the uniforms of the rail-
way servants of the other powers of Europe, has hit
upon a most excellent and durable working dress of cor-
duroy for their men.
Obvious improvements are, indeed, daily taking place
in the uniforms of our militia, which, I believe, are under
the immediate control of the Secretary at War. I never
saw troops more sensibly dressed than are the Militia
Artillery of Colonel Cator, and the Rifles of Lord
Jocelyn, and the Middlesex Regiment, commanded by
Colonel Bagot ; but it is painful to see that these im-
provements are confined to our militia, who as yet are
but playing at soldiers, while a morbid and occult influ-
ence, existing somewhere in the machinery of the Horse
Guards, deprives our regular troops from benefiting by
them.

One thing, however, is certain, that whoever the par-
ties are who havA hitherto controlled the clothing of our
army, they are utterly unfit for the trust, and ought to
be summarily excluded from any further interference
with it. And to prove this I will take you, sir, no fur-
ther than to St. James's-park, in which the Horse Guards
are situate, and which the Commander.in•Chief crosses
every day of his life.

Her Majesty's Guards enjoy certain privileges and
immunities over the rest of the army. They are supposed
always to be in readiness for active service, and, when-
ever war does break out, they are always the first to be
sent to the scene of it. Their London duty is said to
be rendered extremely severe by the number of sentinels
which they are required to station in exposed positions,
and their men suffer much in consequence from pulmo-
nary affections brought on by cold and wet. You must
have felt, sir, as well as other people, the bitter winds
and the driving rain of the last week. If, during any
hour of the day or night during that time, you had cast
your eyes on the sentries of the Guards posted at the
National Gallery, the public offices, St. James's, or
Buckingham Palace, you would have seen that they
were defying the elements in white duck trousers.

Our men-of-war's-men, even in tropical climates, are
always compelled to change duck for cloth when the sun
goes down, no matter how hot the weather may be ; at
Malta and Gibraltar the same rule is enforced with re-
gard to the troops in garrison ; but there were, and there
are still, these wretched Guardsmen shivering at mid-
night at the corners of our streets, clad in linen—and in
pipe-clayed linen, too—which renders it far more wretched
and unwholesome in wet weather ; while the policemen,
who ever and anon cross them in their beat, are comfort-
ably cased from top to toe in broadcloth and mackintosh.
Whose fault is this ? Whose business is it to amend
it? And cannot it be amended until the Commander-
in-Chief has completed his collection of the military uni-
forms of Europe, with a view to the consideration of the
dress of the army ?
It seems that Lord "Raglan proposes to do away with
the stock at last (I think the British soldier may thank
the Tirnes and Punch for that), and that he is also about
to endeavour to adapt bearskin caps and black felt and
patent leather shakes to the summer sun of Turkey by
casing them with white calico.
So far good. It is not for me to say whether a wicker
case covered with a bearskin, ornamented with much
bright brass, and finally crammed into a white calico
pillow-case, is a reasonable headdress for a reasoning
man ; and I confess I think that the new undress cap
of the Guards, to which Lord Adolphus Vane appears
to object so strongly and, in my humble opinion, so
reasonably, will, when covered with white calico, assume
very much the aspect of the common cotton nightcap,
as known to the ancients ; but I would ask, why did
not the Commander-in-Chief, taking into consideration
the destination of our army in Turkey, and profiting by
the military experience which he must have acquired in
India, take off their stocks and provide them with a
rational uniform and headdress suited to the climate to
which they were about to proceed before he shipped
them off for the East

If Sir Gilbert Heathcote would procure a direct an-
swer to this question, he would, indeed, do good service
to the army.- —I am, Sir, your obedt. servant,
June 3. J. 0.

MEXICO.