{"id":10727,"date":"2015-02-25T05:39:35","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T10:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=10727"},"modified":"2015-02-25T05:39:35","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T10:39:35","slug":"150000-jars-of-rum-for-the-front","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/150000-jars-of-rum-for-the-front\/","title":{"rendered":"150,000 Jars of Rum for the Front"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, February 25, 1915<\/em><\/p>\n

In billets,\u00a0Armenti\u00e8res<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cPlatoons in trenches relieved at night by other platoons of Battalion.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Captain<\/a>
Captain Steacie of the RMR in the trenches with a SRD jar of rum (Feb-Mar 1915)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY:\u00a0TOMMY\u2019S RUM \u2013 Part 1 –\u00a0<\/strong>An English newspaper gave an account of the War Office arrangements for the supply of rum for the British soldiers:<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that the nights are beginning to be cold, Tommy Atkins in the trenches in France is beginning to feel the need of \u201csomething to keep out the cold.\u201d\u00a0 With timely forethought for the welfare of the British soldier during a prospective winter campaign, the War Office is sending to the front a consignment of 150,000 gallons of rum.\u00a0 The bottling of this quantity, which in the ordinary circumstances would probably represent an excise duty of something like \u00a360,000, is being undertaken by the Port of London Authority, and the Rum Quay at the West India Docks offers a scene of exceptional activity even for a department which is accustomed to deal with thousands of puncheons in the course of a year.\u00a0 The huge vats at the West India Docks, which have an aggregate capacity of 58,500 gallons, are of course available for blending of this Army rum.\u00a0 All of it is genuine sugar cane product, requiring no addition of spirit, since it is already much over proof.\u00a0 Some of it was imported in 1911, and some in succeeding years, but the age is not necessarily indicated by the date of importations.\u00a0 Emerging from the vats 4.5 per cent under proof, the rum is measured by the gallon and passed through funnels into stoneware jars of the customary type, and each of one gallon capacity.\u00a0 The jars are then corked and sealed with the seal of the Port Authority.<\/p>\n

The next stage is the packing of the rum.\u00a0 For convenient handling it is placed in wooden cases, which accommodate a couple of jars.\u00a0 The case is kept to a size which can easily be lifted by one man, so as to give as little trouble as possible in distributing the rum among widely scattered troops.\u00a0 Each case bears an intimation that it forms part of the Army supplies.\u00a0 About 3,000 jars of the rum are sent away each day.\u00a0 The destination is Newhaven via Willow Walk Railway Station.\u00a0 From the Sussex port the consignments go to the most convenient Continental port, thereafter to be forwarded to the base of operations.\u00a0 Large supplies of jars, of which a total of 150,000 will of course be required, arrive daily at the West India Docks.\u00a0 With the active co-operation of the Customs the work of bottling proceeds until 6 p.m., instead of 4 p.m., as is usual in the case of bonded warehouses.\u00a0 In this way, and with the employment of a large staff of men, this big War Office order is in the process of careful execution.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 [2]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0 War Diary, 14th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, Feb 25, 1915.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089695.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n
[2]\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTommy`s Rum,\u201d The Journal of Commerce<\/em>, Montreal, Quebec, Saturday, October 24, 1914, pg. 4, col. 1.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday, February 25, 1915 In billets,\u00a0Armenti\u00e8res\u00a0\u00a0 The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cPlatoons in trenches relieved at night by other platoons of Battalion.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1] THIS DAY IN RMR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-day-in-rmr-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}