Outfitter

“ The Alpine Club of Canada will always be glad to give information to parties desirous of visiting the Canadian Rockies for the purpose of camping, hunting, fishing, exploring, or viewing the scenic splendors of the region. It will also place such parties in communication with reliable outfitters and guides, a number of whom are connected with the Club. ”

“ It was delightful to sit in a hairdresser's chair again and taste some of the luxuries of civilization. I could not help envying the barber his peaceful occupation, which I dare say he is still pursuing and which I knew he would be doing long after I was out of reach of a machine brush and hair oil; and I thought, too, how much pleasanter it would be to be attached to headquarters staff as an espionage officer and have one's lunch in the restaurant of a hotel instead of eating bully and biscuits and dodging shells in a ditch. ”

“ You will have to get an outfit, and there will be the expense of your travel, until you join your regiment. There will be no difficulty about an outfit. This you can procure easily, on the sale of some officer's effects. ”

“ A merchant tailor has in the same shop with himself one or more "bushelmen," who repair garments, and one cutter who cuts all the garments. Besides these, there are usually several "journeymen" tailors in his employ, who come to the shops for garments and make them up in their own homes, unless a "back- shop" is provided a room near by where the tailors work together, although on separate garments. ”

“ It was decided that the hunting shirt should be used and also that the continental government should supply the clothing and then ten per cent of each man's wages should be withheld each month.69 The quartermaster general had charge of the clothing supply and at regular intervals he was supposed to distribute clothing to the soldier, but the supply varied to such an extent that no regular plan could be followed. ”

“ When we consider the class of men who have embarked in sheep-farming, without the least previous knowledge on the subject, the wonder is not that there have been mistakes and mismanagement, but that there has been so little of them. Officers of the army and navy, retired barristers, half-pay linen-drapers, doctors, quakers, captains of whalers, merchants, and traders—in fact, men of all professions, and the most opposite pursuits, are to be found settled upon their stations in the bush, and seem in general as equal to the management of them as men brought up to rural occupations in England. ”

“ But I had not been there many minutes when the tailor came to me, saying, “There [171] is one, a foreigner, in the shop, who desires to speak with thee. He hath an axe and a pair of sandals, which he thinks are thine, and the other woodcutters have directed him to thee; so come forth to receive them, and to thank him.” With this, he returned to the shop, leaving me pale with fear, for well I knew the meaning of this thing. While I was planning what to do—whether to go into the shop, or escape by some other way—the floor was rent asunder, and there rose from it the Efrite. ”

“ We, that is, the Sappers and Miners, staid here some days, proving and packing off shells, shot and other military stores. While we staid here we drew a few articles of clothing, consisting of a few tow shirts, some overalls and a few pairs of silk-and-oakum stockings; and here, or soon after, we each of us received a month's pay, in specie, borrowed, as I was informed, by our French officers from the officers in the French army. ”

“ As you walk the street cast your eyes above the door of the worthy shopkeeper. A thousand to one that in a day’s saunter you will possess yourself, and from such a source, of a name in every respect unexceptionable. Yes, from the board of the thriving, honest, painstaking, till-respecting tradesman. And if so, how ingenious, how pleasant withal, to obtain one of your best weapons from, so to speak, the armoury of the enemy, to be fleshed immediately upon him! It is perhaps unnecessary to warn the young swindler that he must not be too homely in his choice. ”

“ As the Purser’s steward so conspicuously figured at the unsuccessful auction of my jacket, it reminds me of how important a personage that official is on board of all men-of-war. He is the right-hand man and confidential deputy and clerk of the Purser, who intrusts to him all his accounts with the crew, while, in most cases, he himself, snug and comfortable in his state-room, glances over a file of newspapers instead of overhauling his ledgers. ”

“ The soldier at first stuck to his text, but seeing that the shop-keeper was not inclined to give way, he laid down the sum named and began to take his goods, picking out the very worst he could find. Here, however, the shop-keeper interposed, saying, “Excuse me, Sir, but you are taking all the bad ones. It is doubtless very kind of you to leave the best for me; but if all men were like you, there would be a general collapse of trade.”
“Sir,” replied the soldier, “As you insist on accepting only half the value of the goods, there is no course open to me but to choose inferior articles. ”

“ When a moment of ease presented itself during the life examination--the supply sergeant got busy and started to hand out what excess supplies he had and, in the matter of uniforms, of which there was always an undercess, measurements were taken with all the exactness and precision befitting a Fifth Avenue tailoring establishment. Why measurements were ever taken has ever remained a mystery, because almost every soldier can remember wearing his civilian clothes thread-bare by the time the supply sergeant was able to snatch up a few blouses and trousers at the quartermasters. ”

“ The trying-on reminds you of the dressing-up of recruits in barracks, the tailor being profuse in his assurances that the number which corresponds to your measurement must of necessity fit you well. If any garment which has been made to [70] order turns out to be tight here, or baggy there, it needs all the eloquence you are master of to convince the tailor that the garment really is so. If you do not succeed in convincing him, you have either to take the article as it is and make the best of it, or to fight the State in an action at law.
Going to law is now a very cheap affair. ”

“ In the clothing, messing, equipment, and every other branch of the interior economy, improvements were introduced to promote the health and comfort of the soldier, and the efficiency of corps; and the establishment of confidential inspection reports facilitated the accomplishment of these objects, by furnishing the Commander-in-Chief, and the authorities under him, with the means of forming a correct judgment of the state of each corps in all its details,—of [103] correcting what was wrong,—of supplying what was deficient, and of ascertaining the merits and capabilities of the officers. ”

“ At the administration of the oath to new recruits, after having held forth to them on the subject of the hardships at the beginning of a soldier's life, he added, "It shall be your reward when you have learnt your trade, to manoeuvre before me." ”

“ Merchants, tradespeople, professional men, children of wealthy or ambitious families, all attained rank in the army by this unwise means, and the consequence has been that the majority of company, and perhaps even of field officers, was rather fitted to display the magnificent uniforms to which their grades entitle them than to discipline the rank and file when organized in battalions, regiments and divisions. ”

“ Ample clothing, says the reader; and ample clothing, say I. But what did we ever realize of all this ample store:—why, perhaps a coat, (we generally did get that,) and one or two shirts, the same of shoes and stockings, and, indeed, the same may be said of every other article of clothing—a few dribbled out in a regiment, two or three times in a year, never getting a whole suit at a time, and all of the poorest quality; and blankets of thin baize, thin enough to have straws shot through without discommoding the threads. ”

“ Moreover, I bespoke of him other clothes and bade him hang them out in front of his shop, that the folk might see them and buy them. He did as I bade him, and whoso came forth of the palace and aught of the clothes pleased him, I made him a present thereof, even to the doorkeeper.
One day, the tailor said to me, “O my son, I would have thee tell me the truth of thy case; for thou hast bespoken of me a hundred costly suits, each worth much money, and hast given the most of them to the folk. ”

“ The milliner who makes the dress is as much a servant (more so, in that she uses more intelligence in the service) as the maid who puts it on; the carpenter who smooths the door, as the foot-man who opens it; the tradesmen who supply the table, as the labourers and sailors who supply the tradesmen. ”

“ Behind it stand maid-servants, in a uniform of white gowns and black aprons, who give everybody what he asks for, and have room enough to do their ministering conveniently: behind them is a door communicating with the ‘offices,’ through which everything needful is handed to them without disturbance to the company;—the disagreeable procession of troops of men-servants balancing great trays and pushing about the ‘salons’ with them, always in danger of discharging their contents, cold or warm, into the laps or pockets of the company, is thus avoided. ”

“ In a few days the recruit begins to feel a little more at home in his new surroundings. One of his first ordeals is that of being fitted with clothing, and with few exceptions, all his clothing is ready-made, for the quartermaster’s store of a unit contains a variety of sizes and fittings of every article required, and from among these a man must be fitted out from head to foot. ”

“ You will get an idea of the luxury of royalty by a short account of the gardes du corps. These troops are all officers, the privates having the rank and receiving the pay of lieutenants. Their duty, as the name implies, is to have the royal person in their especial care, and there is always a guard of them in an ante-chamber of the royal apartments. They are heavy cavalry, and when they mount guard in the palaces, their arm is a carabine. A party of them always appear near the carriage of the king, or indeed near that of any of the reigning branch of the family. ”

“ PURVEYOR of Public Supplies, a civil officer whose duty it is to purchase what is required for public service, as military clothing, medicine, equipments; the troops of the United States have for a few years became worse clad than formerly, owing to the scandalous abuse of economy in the purveyor; and overlooked in the military department; a few years since no troops in the world were better provided for.
Purveyor, a person employed in the quarter-master or commissary general’s department in the British service. ”

“ I have already said, that with these people I remained upwards of three years; on land I acted as store-keeper; and at sea, as a sort of purser to the ship. It is to be observed, that there was always a sufficient number of hands left on the island to man the fort, which was so situated as effectually to prevent the approach of an enemy. Indeed the office of store-keeper was a place of great trust. You would hardly credit me, was I to attempt to tell you the immense riches these robbers robbers had amassed together. One article alone will be sufficient to give you an idea of it. ”

“ The French officer buys a little biddet, puts his shirts and best regimental coat into a little portmanteau, buckles that behind his saddle, and with his sword by his side, and his croix at his button-hole, travels at the expence of about three shillings a day, and often less, through a kingdom where every order of people shew him attention, and give him precedence. ”

“ And every trade in the same nature, as a captain in an army has his particular company of soldiers under him, had its own hired company of journeymen and laborers belonging to it banded together as in array, to be as it were the instrument and body for the performance of the service. ”

“ What's that?
SOLDIER
Don't know, sounds funny. See anything, Corporal?
CORPORAL
There, I see him! Huh, it's just a farmer crackin' his driving whip.
SOLDIER
Yah, I see him. What's he got in his other hand? ”

“ And be it further enacted, That the allowance of clothing for non-commissioned officers and privates of the infantry of the said three regiments, shall be the same, as is by law established: that suitable clothing be provided for the cavalry, and adapted to the nature of the service, and conformed as near as may be, to the value of the clothing allowed to the infantry and artillery. ”

“ Is there any one left alive here besides ourselves. Have you seen an officer in a colonel's uniform? My husband was in the service of King James, he wore the royal uniform, when he tied my child to my waist with his sash, and lifted me into a boat. ”

“ On the contrary, the work is absolutely continuous. The men always want all sorts of things that the Supply Column does not provide, and it is up to me to get those things, and what is more, in most cases, to transport them also. I am in charge of a number of wagons, limbers, etc., to carry out this latter job, and I am responsible for the care and transport of the ordinary supplies for our Brigade Headquarters after they leave the Supply Column. ”

“ IV. The tailor must have given his life to the dull business of making clothes—the wheelwright and carriage-maker to their woodwork—the smith to his buckles and springs—the postillion to his riding—the horse-breeder and breaker to the cattle in his field and stable,—before I could make progress in this pleasant manner, even for a single stage. ”