502 
OFFICE WORK OF A GARRISON BATTERY. 
quickly checked by the previous returns, the casualty return partially check¬ 
ing the brigade return. 
66. The ledger is now ready. The ordinary checking consists in simply 
and rapidly running over each page, checking the additions, and seeing that 
the balances for the last month have been carried down, and that there are 
no obvious errors. Thus, there must be something wrong or omitted in two 
charges in the same month (January), 29 days messing, 3 days hospital. 
Less than two hours spent in this way will often give good results. But to 
really check the ledger a good many documents are required, and a beginner 
should certainly use them. The pay books give the pay issued, and it is a 
pity that we cannot use a regular pay book, to show the amounts for each 
man at the end of the month. I myself believe that, in a garrison battery, 
it would be easier to pay each man singly and directly on his ledger sheet, 
making him sign then for it; there is just room. This would give a little 
more trouble to the Pay-Serjeant on pay days, but would save much work 
and calculation in preparing for pay. 
67. Now, supposing the pay is rightly entered in the ledger, you require 
the following documents to check the accounts - 
Hospital stoppage return. 
Return of mulct pay. 
„ fines. 
Punishment return. 
Casualty return. 
Necessaries ledger. 
Tailor’s bill. 
Shoemaker’s bill. 
Marking necessaries list. 
Pamily stoppage roll. 
Subscription lists (cricket, &c.) 
Lists of warrants (if any) received by 
Paymaster, recoverable from men. 
Porm 97, or No. 1 Reports, received 
from Paymaster, for transfers. 
Cell return. 
This list may seem large, but it really is rapidly run through. You take 
the ledger, the Pay-Serjeant the vouchers, and he reads them to you in suc¬ 
cession ; or you can do this only for the first three on the list, simply 
referring to the others as you come to any charge, and ticking it off in the 
list. I do not mean to say that this is necessary to be always done by you— 
you may find everything right; but it is certainly advisable to try it till you 
can do it quickly. If you have inaccurate clerks, you will soon find the 
ledger sheets get confused, and you will understand the strength of some of 
the reasons given in the introduction against the complicated system of cross- 
totalling. 
Checking the Casualty Return. 
68. Next comes the checking of the casualty return. You take the 
fair return, the Serjeant-Major, or his clerk, the rough casualty book, and 
he reads out to you all entries. This insures your having all of them down. 
You will remember that the rough casualty book has been already brought 
into agreement with the punishment, court-martial, deprivation of pay, fines, 
and other returns. Next, the Serjeant-Major takes the attestations, and 
reads to you the age and date of each man’s attestation, as you go through 
your entries in regular order, and he also reads the entry on the attestation 
that ought to agree with that you are looking at. Now is the time to enter 
any casualties you have omitted on the attestations. Then you have to see 
that the duplicate return and the fair copy in the book all agree. It is as 
