51 OFFICE WORK OF A GARRISON BATTERY, 
every year or so. All disallowances, or increased allowances, resulting 
from the observations, must at once be entered in the balance sheet, 
and should be immediately recovered or carried out. Thus the Pay¬ 
master may disallow two days’ pay for Gr. Smith, for 10th and 11th 
January, as he was then in the pay of another battery: this makes a 
debt on the balance sheet to the Paymaster, covered on the other side by a 
credit to the same amount due from the man, or from the other battery, 
as the transfer ledger sheet may show him paid by them for those days or 
not; and recovery of the amount is made as soon as practicable. Or 
the Paymaster may point out that G. Brown ought to have been given 
G.C. pay from 18th, not 19th January, and he therefore allows another 
penny: this is at once carried to G. Brown’s credit in his February 
ledger sheet, and entered as a credit in the balance sheet from the Pay¬ 
master, covered by a debt on the other side to the man. The Battery 
may, of course, sometimes suffer actual loss from disallowance, as it 
would in the case given above if G. Smith had been discharged, having 
been twice paid for the two days before the receipt of the observations; 
but ordinarily the observations do not alter the Battery’s balance. The 
Battery is only shown to owe so much more or less to the Paymaster 
than was shown in the balance in the Pay List, and the same sum (the 
difference), more or less, to the men or to other persons. All actual 
irrecoverable losses should be paid up by the Major as soon as they are 
ascertained. Many mistakes are made on the points dwelt on here, 
Cash Booh. 
88. The Major keeps an account of all his cash transactions by 
means of his Cash Book, which is fully described in paragraphs 2 to 8. 
The form may be altered by inserting columns for cash transactions with 
the Pay-Sergeant. This book is the foundation of the system of 
battery accounts; any neglect of it is fatal, while if it is kept up all 
complications can be eventually unravelled. One point may be noticed 
here. Much misunderstanding seems to exist as to what is called 
keeping the cash accounts for each month separate. A good deal might be 
said for separating the cash, only it is impossible to do so. For example, 
the credits of all men not paid up on the last of the month are carried on 
to the accounts of the next month, so that the cash must be mixed sooner 
or later. Again, the canteen bill for the last week in December cannot 
be paid till January, and it will frequently happen that a cheque for the 
January account has to be drawn early in January before the cheque for 
the canteen is drawn, so that No. 1 cheque will be for January, No. 2 for 
December. Again, to take a real instance at this present time, the 
Paymaster calls on me in August 1879 to remit an account overdrawn 
in October 1878 : this sum will be paid by the Battery in October 1879, 
and will be recovered from an officer in India in or about December 1879. 
Can all these items be entered in the cash account they really belong to, 
October 1878 ? Again, if a Major finds himself £5 short on 31st October, 
will he require a fresh'remittance from the Paymaster, while he has a 
pheque for ^180 or £200 in his possession ? Let any one who believes in 
