ARMY PILFERING

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 13 July 1917, Page 1

ARMY PILFERING

VANISHED BOOTS. BEDS, AND MULES. Reports of losses consequent oil theft, fraud, arson, or . otherwise" occupy. 14 closely-printed pages in the Army Appropriation Account f for 1915-16 (says a London paper). .These losses amounted in all to £280,758. and. they" included an extraordinary list of tilings. Tile catalogue opens with £79 8s 2d loss due to frauds by a dragoon pay-sergeant, who committed suicide. Here' are some of the other items: — Loss of 150 pairs of boots in transit between Weedon and Norwich." £lsl. Loss of bedding in charge of a "West Biding regiment, £139 Is 6d. Mysterious disappearance of stores at night from the c t uay tit Port Said, owing mainly to anti-aeroplane darkness, £179. "No blame attaches to officer in charge." Disappearance from Winchester of £207 worth of military clothing at the moment when someone signing Irimself " Lance-cor-poral Barnes" took it over. Lance-corporal Barnes also vanished. .. The Ordnance Department at Batt,ersea issued bales of flannel worth £384 to a carman who said he had come from a contractor. Flannel and carman vanished. . Loss of horses and stores by fire "at Seaford, £430 Is Id. Court of Inquiry found that the tire was not accidental. Extraordinary disappearance of mules from Bordon Camp. One night they broke loose from their pickets in the sandy soil, and never a hoof has been seen since. Loss, £1,600. Gun-moving tackle lost from an east coastbeach, £2Ol. Thirty-five horses stampeded at Aiesaudria, £2,000. Three artillery houses lost from a stable in the Midlands, £165. Over-issue of pickles to Indian troop# "owing to an error," £37. Excess rations drawn and eaten by hj, cavalry regiment, £315. . Certain stores at Sierra Leone were needed so urgently at Woolwich that they were telegraphed for. They were despatched without labels or bills of lading, and on arrival at Woolwich £315 worth were Missing. While at Dundee the Black Watch were messed at the drill hall, but lived at theirown homes. By, mistake they were paid separation ■ allowances as well as lodging, food, and fuel allowances. This cost £2,900. Webley (pistols worth £334- were lost in transit to ]|gypt, and at about the same time a nuuiber of hospital marquee roofs, worth £675, disappeared on the way to Malta. "Itis not likely," says the Auditor-General, commenting upon this, that these bulky articles were stolen." But they have never beezi found. A blunder by which the. War Office instruct, ticna fixing a maximum payment to civilia* doctors for the examination of recruits was not sent to the Eastern Command cost £IO,OOO. The storing and delivery of frozen rueat to troops in Egypt was in the hands of a private contractor from January, 1915, to February, 1916, when the A.S.C. took the work over. They report that the proiitj of, this person were "of a very extensive character." " ■ - It was discovered in the beginning of 1915 that Soldiers were sending to relatives parcels containing army blankets, waterproofs, sheets, clothes, and boots, and "a great deal of Government property was found iii parcels awaiting despatch at" various railway - stations." Wilful destruction of blankets by prisoners of war at Dorchester, £169. :• Public money lest- in the sea, February 9, 1916, efforts to'recover unsuccessful. £4,519.' Thirty-one hotses died from an overdose of sulphur given by a civilian foreman, £BOO.

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