welfare and interest of the corps, when incurred
they are never wholly remitted, unless they be
fines under fourpence for small oversights in
men against whom no fault has been recorded
for three months.

Careful provision has been made, also, for the
establishment and safe maintenance of a Sick
and Burial Fund, and every Commissionaire is
required to provide for his days of infirmity by
beginning, within three months after his appointment
to the corps, to lay by not less than a
shilling in the savings-bank of the corps, or in
some other institution or security approved by
the commanding officer. Of this he may not
without leave withdraw more than the interest,
or any money that he has deposited in excess of
the rate of a shilling a week; but all that has
accumulated will be paid to him, without deduction,
within a fortnight of his resignation or
dismissal. The money in the savings-bank cannot
be forfeited except by conviction of dishonesty in
a court of law, and then only to the extent necessary
to make good the loss occasioned by the act
of which the offender is convicted.

The rifle-green tunic, forage cap, winter trousers
with red beading, summer trousers, pouch
and belt, waterproof cape and great-coat, forming
the uniform of the Commissionaire, are provided
out of the Clothing Fund, to which he pays for it
eighteenpence a week. When he quits the corps,
the uniform must be returned into the quarter-
master's store.

There is also a General Fund, to which every
Commissionaire pays five shillings on joining the
corps, and subscribes afterwards a shilling a
month; it is to this fund that the fines are paid.
When a Commissionaire gets permanent employment
he pays the amount of a week's profit from
it to the General Fund, and for temporary employment
given from head-quarters he pays a penny
in the shilling. Men stationed on public posts
keep their whole earnings without deduction,
except when they obtain employment through
the office. The General Fund is liable for the
payment of non-commissioned officers of the
corps, and other incidental expenses of the
system, and it is charged with all losses occurring
to the corps.

But it is clear that this General Fund, raised by
the most equitable forms of taxation on the men,
can only yield a very small exchequer. All the
funds are for the benefit of the men, and no
profit whatever is deducted from them. The
Clothing Fund pays the wages of the quarter-
master sergeant who serves that department;
but, beyond that, is actually spent upon the
clothes. If any cheapness of material leaves
money in hand after the regulation dress of
fixed quality and pattern has been furnished,
the money is paid back to the men in the shape
of a pair of boots every year or every two years.
The pensions of the men are all made payable at
Regent's Park Barracks, and on pension-day each
Commissionaire settles outstanding accounts
with his corps. But the amount that goes to
the General Fund can never, with fairness to the
men, be made to bear the entire cost of managing
the corps.

And so we come back to the difficulty which
the public is now asked to come and see and
conquer. Hitherto it has been met by the
unstinted liberality of the founder of this admirable
institution, but he cannot live for ever; and, if
he could, it would be poor return for his beneficent
care and thought in the creation and complete
organisation of such a corps, that he should
be required to slave for the rest of his days over
the mechanical superintendence of its details.
He has made a machine complete in every part,
capable of important service; he has turned it
out in the finest working order, as a free gift to
the public, and is the maker and donor of the
engine to be paid by the demand that he shall
be also for the rest of his life its stoker
and driver? The founder of this corps asks
nothing for himself, but the assurance that
what he has created and set going will henceforth
be kept going and put to its right use.
Essential to the existence of the corps is a staff
that shall be the centre of its discipline. The
annual expense of a sufficient staff is calculated
at a very modest sum—three hundred and fifty
pounds.

From the regiments and ships of army and
navy, for whose invalided men it makes thoughtful
provision, and from the busy men of wealthy
London, to whom this corps is becoming every
year more valuable, it ought to be most easy to
obtain as much friendly and considerate help as
would fill up the measure of a slender endowment
fund, and make the corps of Commissionaires
a permanent institution, expanding and
doing its good service evermore. Eight thousand
pounds will be an adequate endowment. It
is proposed by the founder that subscribers of
ten pounds to the Endowment Fund shall be
life governors of the corps, and that a regiment
whose united subscriptions amount to
twenty-five pounds shall be perpetual governor,
with a right to nominate one of its body
to watch over its interests. It is proposed,
also, that the governors thus constituted meet
annually to elect trustees, and that the
future trustees appoint the commanding officer,
and see that the fundamental rules are carried
out.

An Endowment Fund, then, is now being
raised, and Sir J. Y. Scarlett, Generals Brook
Taylor and David Russell, Colonel H. A. White,
Colonel Wetherall, Colonel Shadwell, and Colonel
Sargent, have consented to act as its provisional
trustees. Subscriptions are received by Messrs.
Cox and Co., Army Agents, Craig's-court,
Charing-cross, or at any of the branches of the
Westminster Bank, but there is no reason in nature
why it should not rain small money and postage
stamps upon the sergeant-major of the corps at
the barracks in Exchange-court, Strand, W.C.
The small additional cost of management that
will be caused by the certain growth of the corps