TAILORING AND "TIPPING."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6063, 23 April 1881, Page 7

TAILORING AND "TIPPING."

TttAT needless and foolish, changes in the uniform and accoutrements of the British army are made at frequent intervals has long been a chronic scource of complaint in every messroom throughout the service. Hitherto, however, such grumbling has been mainly confined to these localities, and the first intimation which the general pnblic has received of the alteration has taken the form of the appearance in the streets of men attired in a way which seemed to point to efforts to convert them into a species of military Guy Fawkes. As long as the transformation assumed the shape oE an exchange of the shako for the " Prussian Pickelhaube," or of the old-fashioned and comfortable forage caps for the hideous muffin, and even more hideous apology for a Glengarry bonDet, the nation at large heard but very little of it. Civilians wondered by what inscrutable power these transformations were effected, and who it was who seemed bent upen making the British soldiers a species of parody of thefoolishimages which are paraded on the sth of November— but. there the matter ended. A recent effort, however, on the part of certain officials (in connivance or collusion with the Army clothier) to change the time-honoured tartans of the Highland regimenta is apparently not to be so tamely submitted to, 'ihe "clanishness" of Scotsmen is one of their most abiding characteristics; and the sweeping away of the very distinctive dress under which the most glorious achievements of individual Scottish regiments have been effected concerns as much the counties and localities in which they were originally raised as it does the corps themselves. The distinctive tartans of the "Black Watch," the "Rossshire Buff," the "Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders," and the "Argyllshire," "Gordon," and "Sutherland Highlanders," are, in the eyes of their compatriots, inseparably connected with their past history in Egypt, the Peninsula, Waterloo, the Crime!, *nd Lucknow ; and any attempt to change the colour of the time-honoured kilt, under which they have won such imperishable glory, is resented as much by their fellow-country-men as it is by the regiments themselves. Hence it would seem that the AdjutantGeneral's Department is not going to have its latest vagary quite so tamely submitted teas some of its former ones have been. "We have before referred to the allegation, well or ill founded, which is so uniformly current throughout the service—viz., that on every change of uniform certain officials receive douceurs from the army clothiers; and that hem.'e it is to their interest that alterations should take place as frequently as possible. It i- much to be desired that some independent;, member of Parliament would put a definite'question to Mr. Childers upon this point. Should the Secretary for War, : after careful inquiry! bo able definitely to assure the Honse cf Commons, from his own knowledge, that no such indivious. system of corruption prevails, a widely-spread belief will be overturned, and a burning suspicion set at rest. On the other hand, should it turn out that a certain office of;the. Corporation is not the only one in which! the 'underlings have received direct pecuniary rewards from those with whom their masters deal, then a case will arise for the most stringent investigation, and for the removal of a grave scandal from the administration of an important department. Assuredly; the time dishonoured abuse of the "Clothing Colonels" was not abolished simply in order that it might be resuscitated in another form.—Echo. '