This year also saw the abolition of an official abuse dating back before the days of the Regiment's existence. Up to this time, all non- commissioned officers, gunners, matrosses, and even drummers, had warrants signed by the Master-General, and countersigned by his secretary, for which a sergeant paid 3_l._, a matross or drummer, 1_l._ 10_s._, and the intermediate grades in proportion. This was now abolished, with great propriety, as an old MS. says, "as no one purpose appears to have been answered by it, but picking of the men's pockets." Doubtless, there were in the Tower officials who would not endorse this statement; and who were of opinion that a very material purpose was answered by it. In February of this year, also, the officers of the Regiment entered into an agreement for the establishment of a fund for the benefit of their widows, no such fund having as yet existed. Each officer agreed to subscribe three days' pay annually, and three days' pay on promotion; but this subscription apparently was felt to be too high, or it was considered proper that some assistance should be rendered to the fund by the Government, for in 1762 a Royal Warrant was issued, directing one day's pay to be stopped from each officer for the Widows' Fund, and that one non-effective matross—in other words a _paper_ man—should be mustered in each company, the pay of such to be credited to the fund. By this means it was hoped that the widow of a Colonel Commandant would obtain 50_l._ per annum; of a Lieutenant-Colonel, 40_l._; of a Major, 30_l._; of a Captain, 25_l._; of a Lieutenant, Chaplain, or Surgeon, 20_l._; and of a Lieutenant-Fireworker, 16_l._ But, either the officers would not marry, or the married officers would not die, for in 1772 another warrant was issued, announcing that the fund was larger than was necessary, and directing the surplus to be given as a contingent to the Captains of companies. It is somewhat anticipating matters, but it may here be said that a few years later the officers of the Regiment again took the matter into their own hands, and formed a marriage society, membership of which was nominally voluntary, but virtually compulsory, until about the year 1850, after which it failed to receive the support of the corps, its rules not being suited to modern ideas. On 13th May, 1872, these rules were abrogated at a public meeting of the officers at Woolwich, and the society, with its accumulated capital of 50,000_l._, was thrown open on terms sufficiently modern and liberal to tempt all who had hitherto refrained from joining it. At that meeting, the original charter of the society, signed by the officers serving in the Regiment at the time, was submitted to their successors, and there was a dumb eloquence in the faded parchment with its long list of signatures, which it would be impossible to express in words.