432 MESS MANAGEMENT. 
The Mess ‘I'he officer who is chosen or who elects to serve in this capacity and 
Secretary. to carry through this thankless task must—to do it well—go heart and 
soul into the business ; some officers have a taste for Mess management 
and cooking, and lucky indeed is the regiment or battery that contains 
such an officer. 
The Secretary must see to every detail himself, at least until he has 
established a thorough system; I do not mean only to attend to the 
Accountsnot accounts, which latter, though very important, are not the chief duties 
aus tthe Of the Mess Secretary, though many appear to think so; and many faults 
perry: will be noticeable in a Mess in which the Secretary makes all other 
details subservient to his accounts: the dinners will be bad, the wine 
will be hot, the silver dirty and the napkins unironed. Let the Secre- 
tary however once establish a good system of supervision over the 
messman (should there be one), the servants, the cook, the tradesmen, 
the kitchen and the pantry, then the work will soon become easy and 
his Mess a credit. As in every other business, half the battle is a good 
system. 
The cook. ‘I'he Mess Secretary should personally see the cook and order all 
meals daily ; it is also advisable to order two days’ dinners ahead go as 
Kitchen, to give your cook time. I used in a small Mess to order seven dinners 
ahead on Saturday, or rather the outlines of them, on account of hang- 
Te ing the meat. Hvenif there be a messman, the Secretary should see 
Secretary the cook with the messman when ordering dinner, for orders received 
eyoock second-hand are seldom correct and certainly do not answer with cooks ; 
“algo, the cook personally prefers to see the Secretary and likes to be 
taken notice of: when seeing the cook the Mess Secretary should look 
round the kitchen and larder and see that every thing is nice and clean, 
he should see the meat that has come in, also the vegetables, fruit and 
stores, and if it be a catering Mess, he ought to look round the cold 
Gold joints. joints and arrange what can be done for luncheon with them ; half the 
messing expenses can be saved by a careful watch being kept on cold 
joints and by seeing that they arenot wasted, but used up in hashes, 
Keeping minces, rissoles or stews. The butcher’s bill is by far the heaviest 
down the item in the catering account, and it is in this item that most saving can 
book. Je made, for if not carefully watched the bill will swell from month to 
month, especially with a bad or a dishonest cook, the former wastes 
pis the cold meat and has no ideas for luncheons, beyond fresh chops 
eeiiims ond steaks; the latter will take the cold joints away wholesale and 
piecemeal to feed her or his friends. 
Should the Mess be run by a messman, it is not so necessary of 
See the course to see the cold meat, but 1b 1s more important than ever to see 
sputchers, the fresh meat and supplies: bad messmen—and there are many—will 
‘invariably try to palm off second-class meat, stale vegetables and 
American bacon. 
The Secretary should, even if he does not order dinners two or three 
days ahead, roughly make an estimate of the meat wanted for the next 
ten days in England and during the cold seasons abroad, so as to 
Tendermeat- have the joints hung and the meat tender a sine qué non if the food is 
to be appreciated. 
A very slight study of a good cookery book (Mrs. Marshall’s) when 
