Butler 
should be 
given a 
stripe. 
Dress of 
Servants. 
Cleanliness 
and tidiness* 
Expense 
cellar, 
Surplus 
Butler not 
to pay bills. 
Servant’s 
roster, 
434 MESS MANAGEMENT. 
and becomes master of it; he should be given a stripe to give him 
authority in the Mess over the officers’ servants, for these latter unless 
sharply wheeled into line at times are much inclined to scamp their 
Mess duties. In a regimental Mess, where there are two or three Mess 
servants, some one or other of them is learning the work and can 
always go on detachment and take up butler’s duties ; in small Messes, 
however, there is more difficulty. 
Soldiers pick up cleaning silver very quickly and generally do it 
well. 
Cleanliness and tidiness cannot be too strictly enforced on Mess 
servants, especially in their dress, and they should never be allowed to 
come into the Mess or ante-rooms in slovenly kits; they should all be 
provided with two or three clean striped linen or nankin jackets for 
morning work and to wait in at breakfast and lunch, nothing looks so 
nasty as greasy and seedy dress clothes by daylight; the officers’ ser- 
vants should all have coats of the same pattern so as to be uniform when 
told off to wait. 
The Mess butler can soon be taught to take a pride in his silver and 
glass and to take an interest in flower decorations for the Mess table 
and the ante-room ; he must be made to notice dirt, cobwebs and 
dust and taught to keep the ante-rooms, Mess rooms and lavatories 
tidy at all times of the day; and to see that dirty glasses be not left 
on the tables or newspapers and cigar ashes on the sofas and floors. 
But, here again the ways of the servants will entirely depend on the 
way of the master. 
It is advisable to give the Mess butler a small expense cellar 
or cupboard, which he will be responsible for. The large cellar 
book, shewing receipts and issues, will check what is issued to 
the butler during the month. He should keep on a slate the daily 
account of each officer which will be entered every morning by the 
clerk in a large Mess and by the Mess Secretary or butler in a small 
one, in the day-book; the butler’s wine account can be checked at the 
end of the month by the cellar book and day-book, and the number 
of glasses of different sizes that bottles hold should be previously 
measured and entered in the book; there will be of course a certain 
surplus to be accounted for, as glasses are not asa rule filled; it is 
this surplus that pays the Mess and makes the wine fund. 
I strongly recommend that the Mess butler be given no cash and that 
he be not allowed to pay the catering bills; I have known several good 
servants ruined by lax discipline in this respect, who, if they had 
not been allowed the handling of Mess money, might have kept quite 
straight. 
The pantry should be made comfortable and kept neat, also the 
butler’s room, for good servants will never stay if the surroundings are 
dirty. 
The bitmen must all be placed on a roster for Mess duties and the 
hours of duty and days of waiting at dinner must be strictly 
enforced ; in a large Mess there will be three or four permanent Mess 
servants, in a small one probably only two. 
