HC Deb 04 May 1860 vol 158 c691
SIR DE LACY EVANS

said, he wished to receive some explanation from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War with respect to an Order which had been recently issued from the Lord Chamberlain's Office, to the effect that the rank of Volunteer Officers who may attend Her Majesty's Levees is no longer to be recognized. He could himself see no reason why such an order should have been made. He should also take that opportunity of expressing his regret that the Government had refused to sanction the raising of volunteers in Ireland; he believed that they might, by pursuing an opposite course, have obtained in. that country a valuable addition to the national defensive force. He also found that a General Order had recently been promulgated requiring Officers of certain Corps to discontinue the use of peaks to their forage caps and to substitute, in future, gold lace stripes, in lieu of the present cloth stripes on their undress trousers. That was a somewhat strange regulation, and it was opposed to the practice which prevailed among English gentlemen from their earliest youth of providing some protection for their eyes.