§ CAPTAIN LEICESTER VERNONsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Knapsacks, with Berington's slings attached, have not been tried at Aldershot, and whether any Report respecting them has been received at headquarters?
§ MR. SIDNEY HERBERTsaid, Mr. Berington's Knapsacks had been tried at Chobham in 1855, and subsequently at Aldershot, and a Board of General Officers had reported that in their opinion the disadvantages attaching to them were greater than their advantages. Mr. Berington afterwards made some alterations in his plans to obviate those objections; but still the Knapsacks were objected to by the Inspector General of the Medical Department on the ground of the pressure upon the chest occasioned by the straps by which they were secured. He (Mr. S. Herbert) believed that the matter was not one to be decided by a Board of General Officers, but by the men themselves, and that it would be desirable to issue a large number of the Knapsacks on trial, leaving the men themselves to say which they preferred.