SIR GILBERT HEATHCOTEsaid, he would beg to ask the hon. Under Secretary for War, whether the improvements and amelioration announced last year in the dress and accoutrements of the army, with a view to render them less cumbrous and embarrassing, and more adapted to the requirements of actual service, particularly as to stocks, knapsacks, &c., had been carried out, and to what extent, both at home and abroad.
§ MR. FREDERICK PEELin reply, said, that the improvements which it had been determined to make in the dress and accoutrements of the army had, he believed, been carried out as far as circumstances would allow, but, of course, some time must necessarily elapse before they were universally adopted. With regard to 182 accoutrements, new accoutrements were only issued when they were required, but when it was necessary that they should be issued, those of the new pattern were supplied. Alterations had been made in the knapsacks, which would relieve the troops of about one-third the weight they formerly carried, and all knapsacks now issued were of the new pattern. The old stiff leather stocks had been abolished, and in their place stocks of a light elastic substance had been adopted. The troops in the colonies had been furnished for the current year with clothing of the old pattern, but clothing of the new pattern had been supplied to the army in the Crimea.
COLONEL DUNNEsaid, he would beg to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he had received any report representing that the new stock was infinitely worse than the old one.
§ MR. FREDERICK PEELsaid, he had reason to believe, on the contrary, that it was infinitely better.