The Army Pay Corps, a non-combatant branch of the service, is charged with the business of auditing and keeping accounts straight, and this corps forms the final court of appeal for all matters connected with the pay of the soldier. The Royal Warrant for Pay, a bulky volume published annually, is the manual by which the Pay Corps is guided to its decisions, and from which the harassed colour-sergeant or quartermaster-sergeant derives inspiration for his work. In all units serving at home, and in most of those serving abroad, a system of messing is established regimentally to supplement the ration allowance. Rations for the soldier, by the way, consist in England of one pound of bread and three-quarters of a pound of meat with bone per day, and all else must be bought out of pay and messing allowance. In colonial stations the ration allowance is enlarged to include certain vegetables, and in India the scale is still more liberal, but it is obvious that the English ration of bread and meat is not sufficient for the needs of the soldier, nor will the official messing allowance of threepence per day per man altogether compensate for ration deficiencies. Beyond doubt, however, the provision of necessaries has been brought to a very fine art in the Army, and, with an efficient cook-sergeant in charge of the regimental cookhouses, and capable caterers to supervise purchases for the messing account, with an allowance of fourpence a day per man the rank and file can have a sufficiency of plain, wholesome food. The sergeant-cook in charge of the cookhouses of each unit must have passed through a course at the Aldershot school of cookery before he can undertake the duties of his post, but he is the only trained cook in each unit. Men are chosen as company cooks or squadron cooks haphazard, and often with too little regard to their fitness for their posts. In spite of all disadvantages, though, the average of cooking in the Army is good, especially when one considers the unpromising material with which the cooks have to deal. The contract price for Army meat is not half that paid per pound by the civilian buyers; it is, of course, all foreign meat that is supplied in normal times.