This provision is a very wise and beneficial one to the cadet, for he enters the Service free from the terrifying load of debt. Formerly the Equipment Fund was turned over to the graduating cadet, without any restrictions whatsoever. The consequence was that the largest part of it was spent in New York a few days after graduation, and the young officer was in debt for his uniform for many months thereafter. He started his career with a millstone around his neck, to which weight a few added that of a wife. As one experienced officer remarked, “The ladies are all right, but do not marry until you are out of debt, else every time you take a drink in the Club, you will feel as if you are swallowing the baby’s socks.” One of the most important and difficult duties of the Treasurer is catering to eight hundred ravenous young appetites. To be a successful Mess officer for this large number requires much study, especially in this age of the high cost of supplies. The food provided is excellent in quality and well prepared. In general it is plain and wholesome, just what one would expect at a Military School, but the menu is sufficiently varied so as to please even the fastidious. Southern palates are not forced to long for fried chicken nor Eastern palates for oysters. To make the New Englander feel quite at home periodic boiled dinners gladden their gastronomic lives. Then, too, ice-cream, since the installation of an electric freezer, has become as common as the proteids. The monthly cost of the mess per cadet is about twenty dollars. The Treasurer charges against the cadet not only the cost of his board, but also his laundry, his uniforms, his clothing, his room equipment, mattress, pillows, sheets, towels, and all other necessary articles. Moreover, the salaries of the policemen who clean the halls of the barracks, the bootblacks, the cost of the cadet hops, athletics, and text-books, in fact, the cadet’s entire maintenance is charged against his pay. The Government, however, provides for the up-keep of the buildings, the heating, lighting, and repairs, from separate appropriations. The fourth member of the military staff is the Surgeon, who with his four assistants, medical officers of the Army, watch over the health of the command. Under his charge is the hospital for cadets, and that for enlisted men.