The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-28
ENGLISH ARMY BEARsKINs.

I
 The Regulations About tthe Big Fur Hats of the Coldstream Grenadiers and Scots Guards,
 | For more than one hundred and thir- 1 ty years "a tall hat of fur has been a ] consIlieuous article of lieadgear in the 1 British Army, and it was with a shock that people read in the papers the other day that committee was go- l ing to sit to consider the growing scare | ity of the bearskins from which are made the imposing fuldress hat of the Foot Guards. War Office committees on clothing are dreadful things, but those
 that sit on hats are unutterable. Every
 body remembers with horror the alleg- ed helmet which such committee pro-
 duced few years ago. It was to be the
 universal headcOvering of the British
 Army, and must be serviceable and use-
 ful, The committee decided, as a first
 principle, that an article possessing
 these two qualities must be ugly. Pro
 ceeding from this premise, they gave
 full expression to their ideas of utility,
 and produced a head covering the like of which was never before seen on eorth and 1t is to be hoped never will be again,
 There are members of the Head quar-
 ters Staff who to this day have not
 quite got oyer the sight of the experi- mental helmet devised by the committee.
 Fortunately only one was made. or in-
 stead of only having to lament the
 scarcity of recruits the nation would
 have found itself Withou an army
 whatever No regular soldier or self
 respecting militiaman "a volunteer will
 wear anything-would have put it on. and it's adoption would have left no sar-
 vice to wear it.
 This much is necessary to explain the
 alarm felt the other day when it was
 announced that a War Office Headdress
 Committee was about to tamper with
 the guardsrlan's bearskin. Fortunately
 the committee has only limited powers
 It's only function this time is, so to speak, to haggle with tradesmen The plain fact is that bearskins are growing scarce, and the cost of providing the hat of fur" is increasing yearly in a re-
 narkable manner. Only one kind of fur is used for this purpose. It is that produced by the Amsrlcan black bear and as Ursus Amerlcanus, despite the extraordinary cordiality subsisting be- tween the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race, refuses to produce well furred integument in sufficient quantities to cover the heads of our Guardsmen at a reasonable rate, the never failing resource of committee has been called into operation.
 It costs, on an average, G1 head per annum to maintain the imposing ap- pearanee imparted by the busby. The great caps cost the Government about GS each. Those worn by the Cold streams are a little less, but those for the Grenadiers and Scots Guards cost more than that sum. According to the regulations, a busby must last for eight years, but there are several reasons why the regulation life" of a busby, like the regulation life of a whole lot of other equipment, falls considerably short of the WartOfice span. One of the principal reasons is that the cap is only home service equipment When | a Guards battalion is ordered on for eign service the big busbies-stirrng | battle pictures to the contrary notwlth- l returned to store at Pim- ico Clothing Factory They are not | kept ther awaiting the return of their | former owners. but are reissued to new l y joined recruits or to battalions re- | home, so that men get what is | called part worn equipment" "-London Telegraph