Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 26 - AUS-CHI.pdf/183

 BARRACKS 155 captains and subalterns get half that amount, a portion of the officer’s laid on to baths was only allowed at stations where many recruits room, with a window in it, being often partitioned off for sleeping were received. Such barracks were good in essentials, but the new , in. The quartermaster gets a seven-roomed house type gives much greater comfort. Any further advance in barrackwith small rooms, and the riding-master gets similar room construction is likely to be in the direction of providing <IU ' accommodation. Special quarters for married officers separate cubicles for each man, a system which, some hope, will are also in future to be occasionally provided. The officers’ mess improve recruiting in consequence of the greater privacy afforded ; contains a mess-room, ante-room, and billiard-room, with the against which advantage, however, must be set disadvantages of necessary offices, and the block of officers’ quarters and mess is so a hygienic, disciplinary, and social character. designed that the officers can reach the mess under cover. For The guard-house, situated at the main entrance to the barrack, general, staff, and departmental officers, quarters are provided as contains a guard-room, with a prisoners’ room opening off it, may be required, generally in detached houses, and varying in and four cells. A small-arm ammunition store, firesize according to the probable rank of the occupant, from the engine house and ladder - shed, form part of the .a/,sceus house for the general, with twenty rooms besides offices, to the six- same block, or are near it. Close to the guard-room, u !f?.n s er seven-roomed cottage of the married aide-de-camp or staff are the regimental offices, embracing the commanding &captain. Warrant officers get quarters consisting of a living-room, officer’s office, or orderly-room, the clerk’s office, and an officers’ kitchen, scullery, and three bedrooms. Married sergeants and waiting-room. Here also is the telegraph- or telephone-room, rank and file, numbering about fifty in the case of an infantry when such is required. A medical-inspection-room, with waitingbattalion, get quarters consisting of a living-room, small kitchen room, is also provided if the hospital is too far off for the sick to be 0r scu er aI1< oue Married to ^ y> jerl ot > two, or three bedrooms, according marched thither for examination. The drill-shed, facing the parade soldiers types ^ieofIlunl children. There been several ground, and 150 feet long by 30 feet wide, is usually open on one married quarters, eachhave an improvement side and floored with gravel. When there is no gymnasium it is on the last. In the latest type each quarter is self-contained and closed on the fourth side, has a wood-block floor and a little opens off a verandah, each family having its own water-closet, gymnastic apparatus, and is lighted with gas. The shootingreached by a ventilated lobby from the quarter itself. Near the gallery is sometimes combined with the drill-shed. The sergeants’ quarters is a good laundry with washing-room, heated drying- mess, in a pleasant situation not too close to the canteen or men’s closet, ironing - room, and drying - ground. The proportion of barracks, but convenient for access both for single and married quarters of each size is arrived at from statistics as to 10,000 sergeants, contains a mess-room, about 40 feet by 24 feet, and the soldiers’ families, and, though based solely on the number of necessary adjuncts and offices, including a jug-department with children, it varies according to rank, and even according to the separate entrance for sergeants’ families. character of the barrack. For sergeants are, on the whole, men of The regimental institute consists of two parts, the canteen and longer service than the rank and file, and therefore have larger the recreation establishment. The former contains a bar, a tapfamilies, and the married sergeants and rank and file at depots room, about 48 feet by 25 feet, with a stage at one end for music have, as a rule, more years’ service than those at headquarters. and entertainments, and a room for corporals, with a separate The proportion of quarters with one bedroom ranges from 52 to 68 entrance. There is also a separate jug-department for soldiers’ per cent.; with two bedrooms, from 35 to 27 per cent. ; with three wives, the necessary cellars and accessories, and a quarter for the bedrooms, from 5 to 13 per cent. Out of the 10,000 families manager. The recreation establishment, in a cheerful position referred to, no less than about 24 per cent, had no children, about and quite separate from the canteen, though often near it, contains 20 per cent, had only one child, about 19 per cent, had two children, a recreation- or games-room, a reading-room with library, a coffeeabout 14 per cent, had three children, under 10 per cent, had four room and coffee-bar, kitchen and offices, a grocery shop and store, children, and only about 13 or 14 per cent, had more than four with separate entrance, and quarters for the manager. The children living with the parents, i.e., under 14 years of age if boys, public-rooms have an area of about 2500 square feet, and are about and under 16 years if girls. 15 feet high. Attached to the building, and capable of being used For the single non-commissioned officers and men of each half- for recreation when required, is a lecture-room for the instruction battalion, according to the latest designs, two parallel two-storeyed of companies by their officers. Additional means of recreation are Barrack lt,locks are facing each other, and about 200 feet provided in the shape of a fives-court, a shooting-gallery, and, room. apart, with verandahs both floors, andthese eachblocks con- when land is available, a cricket-ground and soldiers’ gardens. taining two companies. onMidway between The regimental stores and shops include an office for the quarteris the cook-house for the half-battalion, and attached to it is a master, stores for bread and meat, clothing, general purposes, coal, bath-house and four company drying-rooms for wet clothes. Close musketry, and pioneers, and for oil, if the barrack is not lighted to the cook-house, and between it and each barrack block, are by gas or electricity. The shops are for tailors, shoemakers, company dining-rooms, with wash-up sculleries. These five blocks armourers, carpenters, plumbers, painters and glaziers. Transof buildings are connected by verandahs, so that from any barrack- port stables for six horses, with harness-room and forage store, room a man can go under cover to any room in that block, to his and sheds with gates for the waggons and carts used in peace dining-room and drying-room, to the bath-house and kitchen. time, for mobilization vehicles and for two machine guns, complete The barracks for a half-battalion occupy a square plot, and can the purely regimental buildings. In addition, there are the therefore be turned to face in the direction that may best suit the garrison accessories, arranged to serve all the barracks at an site. The barrack blocks contain for each company two sergeants’ ordinary station, or groups of barracks at such a’ station as rooms, two store-rooms, eight men’s rooms 30 feet by 23 feet 6 Aldershot. inches, each for twelve men, and four ablution-rooms. Thus not The army service corps buildings may comprise only the only each company, but each section or quarter-company, has its ordinary stores for bedding, utensils, unserviceable stores, &c., own separate accommodation. The barrack-rooms, 10 feet 6 inches and for forage for any mounted troops, or they may include a in height, afford 57 square feet of floor-space and 600 cubic feet of bakery with flour and bread stores, an abattoir with cattle byres air-space per man. They have windows on opposite sides of the and meat stores, and reserve provision stores, according to the rooms, so as to give through-ventilation, and the beds are arranged circumstances of the station. A chapel is seldom built for a single with their heads to an external wall, seldom less than 18 inches barrack if arrangements can be made for divine services for the apart, and generally in pairs, with a window and an inlet troops at neighbouring places of worship. Gymnasia vary in size ventilator to each pair. An arm-rack and shelves for each from 80 feet by 40 feet to 150 feet by 50 feet, according to the man’s arms, kit, and belongings are fixed at the head of each force they have to serve. Military prisons for the longer sentences bedstead, which can be shortened to half its length in the day- are few in number, and provost prisons for the shorter sentences time, when it serves as a seat. Each man has a box with a lock are less necessary than used to be the case. They are both conbeside his bed, and tables and forms are provided as required. In structed in accordance with the regulations of the Prison Departthe ablution-rooms water is laid on and basins provided at the rate ment of the Home Office, modified as necessary to meet military of one to six men. In the cook-house is apparatus for all ordinary requirements, and are certified as fit for occupation by the inspectormodes of cooking, except roasting before an open fire. The bath- general of military prisons. house, with one bath for the sergeants and four for the men of For the engineers there are ordinarily stores for tools, &c., for the half-battalion, has hot and cold water laid on, as also have field-works, and a building yard, with shops, stores, and offices, the wash-up sculleries, and the drying- and dining-rooms are heated while sometimes pumping establishments and sewage, gas, electric, with hot water. Water-latrines and urinals are provided, -with all and railway works have also to be provided. due regard to decency, in convenient positions not far from the Schools are of two kinds, one for men and for children over barrack blocks, at the rate of 5 per cent, on the accommodation seven years of age, under masters, and the other for the younger for single sergeants and men, those for sergeants being kept children, under mistresses. They are built in accordance with separate. When water-drainage is not available, the earth-closet the principles and regulations of the Committee of Council for system is adopted. Education, modified slightly to suit military requirements. School Such is the approved design at the commencement of the 20th seats in the adult and elder children’s school are provided according century. Up to that time each company had a separate block, to a sliding scale which works out at 10| per cent, for a battalion, and there were no dining-rooms with sculleries, no drying-rooms, but gives a somewhat higher percentage for smaller bodies of and no covered communication with the kitchen, while hot water troops and a lower percentage for larger bodies. In infant schools
 * soldiers’