MESS MANAGEMENT. 439 
and learn quickly; the Genoese and Mugs are the best; they are all, 
however, very dirty as a rule, and unless kept up to their work daily, 
lapse at once back to their own dishes, which come up day by day to 
dinner under different names, mostly written in bad French. 
In India more care than ever has to be taken about the meat and all 
the stores; both cooks and messmen will otherwise get second-class 
meat and charge you for first-class. They sell in Indian bazaars two 
classes at two different prices; damaged and old Europe stores are most 
dangerous and many an illness may be traced to the use of them. 
Messmen in India invariably have bad tea and coffee and should on 
no account be allowed to provide them or any other stores themselves. 
The cooking utensils must be most carefully inspected weekly and 
those made of block steel should be used, the copper ones, when fresh 
tinned over, are not always safe, as much lead is at times used in the 
process of tinning. 
Whereas the milk supply for the men is looked after most carefully 
in most corps, in many officers’ Messes no care whatever is taken 
2nd class 
meat, 
Old stores 
most 
dangerous, 
Cooking 
utensils, 
about either the milk or the washing and drinking water ; officers Badmilkana 
constantly are drinking in the Mess and their own bungalows bazaar 
milk when the regimental dairy is close at hand. I attribute half the 
cases of enteric fever among young officers in India to bad milk and 
water got both in the Mess and their own houses; there are no such 
dirty men as the ordinary Kitmaghars or such lazy servants. 
When you employ a messman in India, I think the best plan is to 
get the cook for the messman and pay him his wages direct and not 
through the messman’s account, you will probably have a better cook 
and he will serve the Mess better, than if the messman had him 
entirely in his power. 
In a small Mess get a first-rate cook and let him cater; I have 
always lived better myself in small Messes both at home and abroad 
worked on this system. 
The old Abdars or wine butlers in India were as a rule first-class 
servants, but the class appears to be dying out; with ice and modern 
appliances they are not so requisite. Indian table servants are fairly 
good if well organized under a smart head man, the Portuguese and 
Madrasees are by far the best, the further north you travel the worse 
the servants get and in the N.W. Provinces the Kitmaghars are a 
lazy, dirty lot. 
water, 
Enteric 
fever, 
Messman’s 
cook pay 
direct, 
Abdars, 
Table 
servants, 
One or two English servants are found in most regimental Messes Bnetish head 
and if is essential to a good Mess to have them, to get the natives to 
work, to clean the plate and to superintend the waiting at table, 
Native servants must have a man to direct them when waiting, other- 
wise they tumble over each other, or stand behind their own masters 
with their arms folded and do nothing, 
The price of messing in India is not heavy, but depends of course a 
good deal on the number of English stores used. Meat and vegetable 
are fairly cheap ; you should manage to do well in a small Mess on 
from 2/8 to 2/12 rupees a day for two meals, breakfast and dinner or 
lunch and dinner; in a large Mess say 2/4 to 2/8, these prices not 
including the cook’s wages. It may be done cheaper, but not well. 
seryants, 
Price of 
messing. 
