Drink and the recruiting system.

Date:
[1867?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Drink and the recruiting system. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I told to say that lie is 24 years of age, when perhaps he is 35 or 38. The subdivision officer must see that he is infinitely older than he represents himself to he, but it is his interest to get him on because there is his income; but give him a fixed salary, and he would not have that interest.” Mr. Samuel IIadey, Quartermaster to the 16th Regiment (pre¬ viously Secretary to the Army and Navy Pensioners'’ Employment Society): “ In a great many instances the men on the recruiting service lead recruits to suppose that they are to receive Is. a day free of deductions, and they only find out the difference after they have enlisted.” Chairman: “ That would show that there was gross deception practised on the part of the recruiting parties towards the men ?”— “ I believe it is the case frequently.” Mr. Godley, Assistant Under Secretary for War : “ It is unne¬ cessary, I suppose, to argue against bounty. It is, in fact, self- condemned, being nothing else than an undisguised appeal to the appetite for present indulgence, to which the class from which we draw our recruits is so prone. The whole of the bounty-money is not merely pure waste. It is, in fact, a curse, and not a boon to the soldier, being almost invariably spent in riot and debauchery. Major-General Eyee, Commandant at Chatham:—Sir A. Tulloch: Do you find that giving bounty by instalments, say Is. a day, leads in any respect to drunkenness, either among the recruits or those soldiers who are comrades of the recruits ?”—a Hot by giving the bounty in instalments of Is.” “Do you not find it leads to drunkenness?”—“Hot much. The other way does, because the man makes all his company drunk, unless he keeps it to enable him to desert.” Dr. J. E. Hiciiolls, Surgeon of the Wiltshire Militia: “Directly they get the bounty-money, the men in their own companies get round them, and it is all drunk out directly.” Major-General Eyee, Commandant at Chatham : “I think it very doubtful whether non-commissioned officers and private soldiers being employed as recruiting parties is for the benefit of the country without some revision of the system. The regiments suffer enor¬ mously by their absence. Some get very demoralised; there is no doubt about that. Many get married, and sometimes badly married, without leave. They are sent in, and others are sent out who get into the same state. And then they go about the villages getting into public-houses, and very often misconduct themselves, and so get the army into disrepute.” Captain J. M‘Kay (this officer served in nearly every rank and capacity from drummer to captain in the School of Musketry and Deputy-Assistant Adjutant-General): “I have known good non¬ commissioned officers, after having been employed on the recruiting service for a short period, return to their regiments dissipated in habits and appearance. ... I have known many good non¬ commissioned officers who have been sent on the recruiting service, and in two years’ time they have returned with dissipated habits and over head and ears in debt.”