We may leave these larger considerations to come down to a view of the interior working of a unit, its pay, feeding, and general life. All arrangements as regards pay for infantrymen are managed by the colour-sergeants of the companies, while in the cavalry and artillery the squadron or battery quartermaster-sergeants have control of the pay-sheets. These non-commissioned officers are charged with the business of drawing weekly the amount of pay required by their respective companies, squadrons, or batteries, and paying out the same to the men under the supervision of the company, squadron, or battery officers. The presence of the officer at the pay-table is a nominal business in most cases, and the non-commissioned officer does all the work, while in every case he is held responsible for any errors that may occur. Each man is given a stated weekly rate of pay, and at the end of each month there is a general settling up, at which the accounts of each man are explained to him; he is told what debts he has incurred to the regimental tailor, the bootmaker, or for new clothing that he has been compelled to purchase to make good deficiencies; in every unit each man is charged two or three pence a month--and sometimes more--by way of barrack damages, which includes the repair of broken windows, etc., and altogether the compulsory stoppages from pay generally amount to not less than two shillings per man per month. The system of pay is a complicated one. As a bed-rock minimum there is a regular rate of pay of a shilling and a penny a day for an infantryman, and a penny or twopence a day more for the other arms of the service. On to this is added the messing allowance of threepence a day, which is spent for the men in supplementing their ration allowance of food, and never reaches them in coin at all; there is a clothing allowance, which goes to defray the expense attendant on the renewal of articles of attire; there is yet another allowance for the upkeep of clothing and kit; there is the proficiency pay to which each man becomes entitled after a certain amount of service, and which consists of varying grades according to the musketry standard and character of the man; this ranges from fourpence to sixpence a day; and then there is badge pay, which adds a penny or twopence a day to old soldiers’ pay so long as they behave themselves. The colour-sergeant or quartermaster-sergeant has to keep account of all these small items, and it is small matter for wonder that many a worried officer or non-com., puzzling his brains over the intricacies of a pay-sheet, expresses an earnest wish that the whole complicated system may be swept away, and a straightforward rate of pay for each man substituted.