VANISHED BOOTS, BEDS, AND MULES.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 12 July 1917, Page 6

VANISHED BOOTS, BEDS, AND MULES.

Reports ( of "• losses consequent on theft, fraud, arson, or otherwise," oc-

cupy 14 closely-printed pages in the Army Appropriation Account for 191516 (says a London paper.) These losses amount in all to £280,758, and they included an extraordinary list of things The catalogue opens with £7B 0s 2d loss due to frauds by a dragoon pay-ser-geant, 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 Eiding regiment, £139 Is 6d. Mysterious disappearance of stores at night from the quay at 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 sigriing himself "Lance-Corporal Barnes" took it over Lance-corporal Barnes also vanished.

The Ordnance Department at Battersea issued bales of flannel worth £384 to a carman who said he bad 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 fire was not accidental.

Extraordinary disappearance of males from Bordon Camp. One night they broke loose from" their pickets "n the sandy soil and never a hoof /h&s '■ been seen since. Loss, £I6OO. Gun-moving tackle lost from an east *oaßt beach, £2Ol. .

Thirty-five horses stampeded at Alexandria, £2OOO. Three artillery horses lost from a stable in the Midlands, £165. Over-issue of pickets to Indian troops "owing to an error" £37. Excess rations drawn and eaten by a cavalry regiment, £315. Certain stores at Sierra Leone were needed so urgently at Woolwich that they were telgraphed for. They were despatched without labels or bills of lading, and on arrival at Woolwich £313 worth were missing. While at the Dundee the Black Watch were messed at the drill hall, but lived at their own homes. By mistake they were paid separation allowances as well as lodging, food and fuel allowances. This cost £2900.

Webley pistols worth £334 were lost in transit to Egypt, and at about the same time a number of hospital marquee roofs, worth £675, disappeared on the way to Malta. "It is not likely says the Auditor-General commenting upon this, "that these bulky articles were stolen." But they have never been found.

A blunder by which the "War Office instructions fixing a maximum payment to civilian doctors for the examination of recruits was not sent to the Eastern Command cost £IO,OOO.

The storing and delivery of frozen meat to troops in Egypt was in the bands of a private contractor from January, 1915 to February, 1910, when the A.S.C., took the work over. They report that the profits of this person were "of a very extensive character." It was discovered in the beginning of i 915 that soldiers were sending to relatives parcels containing army blankets, waterproofs, sheets, clothes, and boots, and "a great deal of Government property was found in parcels awaiting despatches at various railway stations." Wilful destruction of blankets by prisoners of war at Dorchester, £1()9

Public money lost in the sea, February 9, 1916, efforts to recover unsuccessful, £4519. Thirty-one horses died from an overdose of sulphur given by a civilian foreman, £SOO.