Commissary

“ Commissary of Muster. See Muster.
Commissary Sergeants. In the U. S. service, are sergeants who are selected from the line of the army, by the Secretary of War; they must be steady and reliable men, and their duties are to assist the commissary officer in receiving, storing, preserving, issuing, selling, and accounting for the subsistence supplies at their posts, according to the regulations for the subsistence departments.
Commission. A writing, generally in the form of a warrant or letters-patent, authorizing the performance of duties, or exercise of powers belonging to another. ”

“ When a see is vacant the jurisdiction is exercised by a “special commissary” of the metropolitan. Commissary is also a general military term for an official charged with the duties of supply, transport and finance of an army. In the 17th and 18th centuries the commissaire des guerres, or Kriegskommissär was an important official in continental armies, by whose agency the troops, in their relation to the civil inhabitants, were placed upon semi-political control. ”

“ Everything's at sixes and sevens. All the food and drink in one place and all the hungry and thirsty souls in another, some hundreds of miles away. If I was the Chief I'd hang a commissary every time the men go short. ”

“ Not for any one. What do you mean by that?”
“I thought it was the commissary,” said the boy.
“Ah, sapperment! I knew we were in a droll neighborhood,” murmured the driver. “It would seem they never see a cabriolet here except when it brings the commissaire de police to look after some one.” ”

“ Prosper, with the fearful resignation of a man who abandons himself, replied, in a stifled voice:
“Do as you will.”
The banker was near the door, which he opened, and, after giving the cashier a last searching look, said to an office-boy:
“Anselme, ask the commissary of police to step down.”
III
If there is one man in the world whom no event can move or surprise, who is always on his guard against deceptive appearances, and is capable of admitting everything and explaining everything, it certainly is a Parisian commissary of police. ”

“ It embraced the eatablishment of depots of stores, each in charge of a ‘reserve commissary,’ at Croydon, Leatherhead, Guildford, Farningham, and Rochester. In 1799 the post of commissary-general in England was created or restored for the benefit of Sir Brook Watson, and Le Mesurier, holding that he was thereby placed in a secondary position contrary to express stipulation, entered into a spirited controversy with the authorities, which ended in his resignation in June 1800. All the officers employed under him were soon after reduced, and a totally different system introduced. ”

“ The commissary shall issue orders entrusting the matter, as is customary, to some one of the familiars whom he has to keep in the city. Until he has familiars, for lack of them he shall entrust it to the person on whom he has most reliance, and in whose integrity he most confides. When it is necessary, but only then, he may ask for the aid of the royal officials of justice. Whenever this shall be necessary, the royal officials may seize only the person pointed out to them by the Holy Office; and they must assist him, giving their favor and aid only for such person. ”

“ Others who through carelessness, negligence, or ignorance, fail to appear, the commissary shall discharge with a gentle reprimand, setting at ease their consciences in regard to the excommunication.
25. The Inquisitor therein anticipating the action of any other judge is accustomed to visit all ships which arrive at the ports, no matter whence they come; therefore the commissary shall do so, if he is in a place where it can be done, and shall ask the principal officers of the ship the questions sent with these instructions. ”

“ Any commissary of musters or other officer, who shall be convicted of having taken money or other thing, by way of gratification, on the mustering any regiment, troop or company, or on the signing muster-rolls, shall be displaced from his office, and shall be thereby utterly disabled to have or hold any office or employment in the service of the United States. ”

“ Not only in every regiment, but in every detachment of the United States’ Army, officers are detailed for these special purposes, with a staff of subordinates selected from the ranks, and directly responsible to the head-quarters of their respective departments. The commissary receives from thence and issues to the troops clothing and subsistence stores. ”

“ We give shelter to any one who—"
Commissary. "Ah, you should beware, for the law is very severe in this particular. It is a subject on which there is no joking! You would subject yourselves to very severe punishment; for a man condemned to capital punishment, it would be nothing less than——"
Husband (quickly) . "We are not afraid of that, monsieur commissaire."
Commissary. "I believe you, and rely on you. However, that I may have nothing to reproach myself with, you will permit me to make a slight search, just a simple formality. ”

“ That a personal obligation should interfere with an official duty was inconceivable.
Hardly a week elapsed, however, before the inconceivable confronted him. It arrived in the mail from Paris. Every employee in the prefecture observed that morning that the commissary, always so methodical, so impassive, appeared agitated. At ten o'clock he closed his desk and left the prefecture without explanation—an unheard-of proceeding. The bonne of the Abbé d'Arlot was no less surprised, on answering the bell at the garden gate, to see the commissary before her. ”

“ A commissary general to be appointed.Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That as soon as the state of existing contracts for the subsistence of the army shall, in the opinion of the President of the United States, permit it, there shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, one commissary general, with the rank, pay, and emoluments, of colonel of ordnance, who shall, before entering on the duties of his office, give bond and security, in such sum as the President may direct ”

“ Look at the quartermaster’s department,—the commissary department,—the State department, and the war department, and you will everywhere find the proofs of utter incompetence, leading straight, as I have before remarked, to that ruin which is pending at the present moment over the country. Our society is uprooted, and there is no hope for the country. Blockade-runners, forestallers, stragglers from the army—Good morning, Colonel Desperade; I was just speaking to our friend, Colonel Surry. ”

“ Just at that time, however, the officials of the commissary department saw fit to feed the whole army on bacon and flour, articles which, if given to troops in that quarter of the country at all, must be brought several hundred miles by rail. The local commissary officers made various suggestions looking to the use of the provisions of which the country round about was full, but, so far as I could learn, no attention whatever was paid to them. ”

“ The man who goes out to do battle for commercial or professional success from an ill-managed and inefficient kitchen and dining-room is as badly off as the army with an inadequate commissary department. Yet, while the commissary department of the modern army receives the most scientific and careful supervision, many a man must leave his kitchen in the hands of a wife who received her training in music, literature, modern languages, and classics, or in a business college, and of a servant who received what little training she has as a farm laborer in Europe. ”

“ The commissary department was open to us. Their troops guarded us, and we reconnoitred, surveyed, located, and built inside of their picket-line. We marched to work by the tap of the drum with our men armed. They stacked their arms on the dump, and were ready at a moment's warning to fall in and fight for their territory. ”

“ The chief quartermaster and the chief commissary were graduates. The chief commissary, now the Commissary-General of the Army, begged off, however, saying that there was nothing in engineering that he was good for unless he would do for a sap-roller. As soldiers require rations while working in the ditches as well as when marching and fighting, and as we would be sure to lose him if he was used as a sap-roller, I let him off. The general is a large man; weighs two hundred and twenty pounds, and is not tall. ”

“ Colonel Cole, chief commissary, reports that he has not a pound of meat at his disposal. If some change is not made, and the commissary department reorganized, I apprehend dire results. The physical strength of the men, if their courage survives, must fail under this treatment. Our Cavalry has to be dispersed for want of forage. Fitz Lee's and Lomax's Divisions are scattered because supplies cannot be transported where their services are required. I had to bring Fitz Lee's Division sixty miles Sunday night, to get them in position. ”

“ Le Corbier turned to the special commissary:
"M. Jorancé, do you confirm this deposition?"
"I confirm each of my friend Morestal's words in every respect," said the commissary. "They express the truth. ”

“ This police commissary was a great patron of all the arts and industries; but what he liked above everything else was a cheque. "It is a thing," he used to say, "to which it is not easy to find an equivalent; it requires no food, it does not take up much room, it stays in one's pocket, and if it falls, it is not broken." ”

“ For if the Cigarette was surprised to be arrested, the Commissary was no less taken aback by the appearance and appointments of his captive. Here was a man about whom there could be no mistake: a man of an unquestionable and unassailable manner, in apple-pie order, dressed not with neatness merely but elegance, ready with his passport at a word, and well supplied with money: a man the Commissary would have doffed his hat to on chance [Pg 132] upon the highway; and this beau cavalier unblushingly claimed the Arethusa for his comrade! ”

“ That each party shall be allowed to keep a commissary 282 of prisoners, of their own appointment, with every separate cantonment of prisoners in possession of the other, which commissary shall see the prisoners as often as he pleases, shall be allowed to receive and distribute whatever comforts may be sent to them by their friends, and shall be free to make his reports in open letters, to those who employ him. ”

“ In cases of disobedience, disrespect, hindrance, and obstruction to the free and just exercise of the Holy Office, which also are wont to occur, the commissary shall be careful not to lose his temper, or to give way to words or deeds injurious and offensive to any person ”

“ These [Pg 34] hands—the hands of men, women and children—are placed in rows before the Commissary, who counts them to see the soldiers have not wasted the cartridges. The Commissary is paid a commission of about a penny per pound upon all the rubber he gets; it is, therefore, to his interest to get as much as he can. ”

“ We telegraphed to London, of course, and we wrote to the bank, with a full description of the suspected person. But I need hardly add that nothing came of it.
Three days later the Commissary called at our hotel. 'Well, gentlemen,' he said, 'I am glad to say I have discovered everything!'
'What? Arrested the Seer?' Sir Charles cried.
The Commissary drew back, almost horrified at the suggestion.
'Arrested Colonel Clay?' he exclaimed. 'Mais, monsieur, we are only human! Arrested him? No, not quite. But tracked out how he did it. ”

“ With truth then I can declare that no man, in my opinion, ever had his measures more impeded than I have by every department of the army. Since the month of July we have had no assistance from the Quartermaster-General, and to want of assistance from this department the Commissary-General charges great part of his deficiency. ”

“ Great as my difficulty was, I did not suffer it to appear so to the commissary, but calmly said that I 'd return to my hotel, and run my eye over a list of the merchants for one to be my bail.
The packet was to sail that evening with the tide; and as the office of the commissaire closed at four o'clock, there was little time to lose. I wandered on “from street to street; I walked into cafés; I sat down in the most public places, scanning with eagerness every face that passed me, and straining my eyes to try and detect the features of an acquaintance. ”

“ A stiff commissariat officer of sixty, famous as a martinet, had then become enamoured of the gravity with which she drove the proprieties four-in-hand through the cathedral town society, and had solicited to be taken beside her on the box of the cool coach of ceremony to which that team was harnessed. His proposal of marriage being accepted by the lady, the commissary took his seat behind the proprieties with great decorum, and Mrs General drove until the commissary died. In the course of their united journey, they ran over several people who came in the way of the proprieties ”

“ The commissary snatched up his hat and ran to the door.
“Go thy ways!” he cried. “Myself, I will conduct you through the village. For the rest, when the Englishman is found, and if he denies thee——”
He did not finish the sentence. In a moment we were all in the rainy street. My accuser was vanished from the neighbourhood of the barrier. A single patriot only was in evidence. ”

“ And now about this commissary business. As I understand it, a commissary is a sort of caterer in a big way. That is, he looks out for a good many more things than a caterer has to bother his head about. Reilly's brigade has probably from two to three thousand men in it, and in regard to certain things you've got to look out for every man of 'em every day. I know perfectly well you couldn't successfully run a boarding-house in Ocean Grove. How you goin' to manage for all these soldiers, hey? Thought about it?'
'No,' said Casper, injured. 'I didn't want to be a commissary. ”