The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-23 00:00:00

THE RECRUITING SERGEANT.

It would be fortunate for the good understanding
between France and England if all the descriptions
of Erglish life and manners submitted to the
considera, ion of the French people were PS faithful
as that given of the British soldier by M. Alphonse
Esquiros in the Revue des Deux Mendes. The
essays which that gentleman has produced on this
subject are remarkable for their gocd sense and
truth. Of course, he looks at our institutions from
without, and draws involuntary comparisons be-
tween our country and his own, but we cannot
remember to have seen any pictures of Englishmen
by a foreign hand in which there was so little exag-
geration, distortion, or error. In the last number
ce? the Revue M. Esquiros presents his countrymen
with a general sketch of the British soldier and his
position, of the method of recruiting, and of the
state of things at the Camp of Aldershott. It will
give a good specimen of his views, and revive a
subject always interesting, if we examine his de-
scription of the system by which the numbers of
our army are maintained.
M. Esquiros was on his way to the House of
Commons one morning when he suddenly stopped
at the corner of Charles-street, Westminster, and
wondered, as well he might, at the parade ex-
hibited in that not very brilliant thoroughfare.
The spectacle is well known to most frequenters
of the Parliamentary quarter of the metropolis.
Specimens of every corps in the British army ap-
peared in full dress about the pavement. Gigantic
sergeants of cavalry lounged at the angle of the
street with that peculiar air of indifference and
display which none but a recruiting sergeant can
assume. At the doors of the publichouses, which
struck M. Esquiros as being both numerous and
flourishing, stood smart representatives of the Line,
Riflemen, Highlanders, Light Infantry, and men
of all branches of the service. The pathway was
thronged with people in earnest conversation, who
occasionally disappeared with their military friends
under the arch of the nearest tavern, and emerged
again after an apparently pleasant interval of re-
creation. Overhead hung the colours of England,
sometimes suspended from a window, sometimes
flaunting from cords stretched right across the
street. M. Esquiros wondered what all this meant,
and inquired of a policeman on duty, who replied
with characteristic self-possession that it was
" nothink," but added, out of compassion probably
for a foreigner's ignorance, that they were " re-
eruiting for old England ; that's all." That was
enough. M. Esquiros presently discovered that he
was at the head-quarters of the London recruiting
district, and upon this he proceeds, like Washington
Irving upon seeing Westminster Abbey, to descant
on the institutions suggested to his mind.
The description of our recruiting system which
M. Esquiros then gives is in all particulars sub-
stantially correct—so correct, indeed, that it would
be perfectly superfluous for us to transcribe his ac-
count. This, however, is not all, for his reflections
are generally well founded also, and he arrives at
an estimate of the result which, in the main, is sur-
prisingly accurate. With that organising turn of
mind for which his countrymen are distinguished,
he classifies the motives which induce our recruits
to enter the army, and concludes that one or more
of three influences must always be at work to pro-
duce voluntary enlistment. A recruit must be
actuated by patriotism, by inclination, or by neces-
sity. It is at this point, however, that M. Esquiros
has gone a little beside the mark. He has not taken
sufficient account of the first-named motives, and
has consequently ascribed too much preponderance
to the last. In point of fact, he considers that re-
cruits generally enlist under the pressure of actual
want, and for the immediate purpose of keeping
body and soul together by the subsistence which
the recruiting sergeant offers. This is not the case.
Not to mention that our Poor Law secures all per-
sons against absolute destitution, it is certain that
any man possessed of the muscular vigour required
for admission to the army could get his own liveli-
hood if he were willing to work. We have no
longer much surplus population, and there is a good
demand everywhere for any kind of skilled labour.
The case of the recruit, in most instances, is not that
he has learnt no trade or can get no work, but that
accident, circumstances, or natural restlessness of
spirit have given him a distaste for his ordinary
occupation, cost him his place, and reduced him to
momentary want. M. Esquiros, it is true, recog-
nises with great readiness our national turn for
adventure, but these energies he thinks must find so
many vents in various civil pursuits that there can
be no great residue available for the aliment of
the army. The remark, however, will not apply to
certain classes from which the army is largely re-
cruited. Take a ploughboy or an artisan possessed
with a roving spirit or an irresistible craving for
adventure, and the chances are ten to one but the
army is the only career open to him. In many cases
he could not even get to sea, whereas there is no
parish or hamlet so secluded but what a recruiting
sergeant is somewhere at hand. Lads of this sort
are seldom forecasting or considerate. They want
to escape from their actual position, and to escape
at once. Their good friend the sergeant is exactly
the man for them. He offers them not only instan-
staneous settlement in a dazzling profession, but a
very handsome sum of money down, and all this
with a promise of an easy life in spheres where
none of their present troubles will ever reach them
again. What wonder if they close with 01161 a
bargain ?

We learn from M. Esquiros that his countrymen
do not by any means share thr;,. admiration with
which w. e are wont to rego.-..ci
volun-
tary enlistment. He titmself half 'doubts whether.
the term is quite
applicable to a system in which
necessity,. as he our system of
which the law abstains; but still, upon the.
thinks, supplies that coercion from
whole, his description is faithful, and
.his
con''..ausions are impartially drawn. He. fairly
-Admits that the recruiting sergeant, with all
his rhodomontade, offers a really good bargain,
and that the ranks of the army furnish the agri-
cultural labourer with a pursuit more productive
and promising than that in which heis engaged.
He is at a loss to understand how the lures of a
recruiting party should be looked upon with such
apprehension by parents, and is led to concludethat
the lavish assurances of the sergeant beget a kind
of distrust by their very extravagance. Yet, in
comparison with the realities of rural destitution,

Ithe prospects thus offered are almost genuine.
sometimes actually so. We remember one of our
own correspondents being struck with an announce..
went on which a sergeant had, ventured, to the
effect that in India a British soldier if tired on a
march would be carried in a palanquin, and if
thirsty would be served with hot coffee. To his
surprise, when he himself was employed on Indian
service, he found that the description was pretty
near the truth.
Proceeding according to his own distribution of
the subject, N. Esquiros concludes that the impulse
which operates in getting us recruits from Ireland
is that of necessity, while in Scotland the motives
is that of patriotism or inclination. He is right in
the latter case, in so far at least as he attributes an
essentially martial character to the Scottish people,
but he is wrong in explaining this by the predo-
minance of Celtic blood; and, indeed, he might have
recollected that this theory would have applied far
morestasaostcoaokassaultsmt
tesur Teutonicte cwfo be ofh uhra forcibly hi ly to the case of Ireland. We suspect
that Irish recruits have a very genuine inclination
towards the army, and that, as a rule, they enlist
under a less degree of pressure than their English
brethren. But the stern martial spirit of the Scot-
tish nation is a very different thing from the noisy
pugnacity of a Celtic race, and belongs, indeed, to
organizednpdeepope independent
e n Thetanand
and f
maintainedScaomt sou osfk
kingdom—are
againstghistory—thedom— a
a rl
el
refuge
unosnttashi,
theor, remote
a btya d
isn
myrsnatt,rie districts
who came
ut hc he Englishcoouft
ntr:
as we are. The blood and language of the Gaels
and left all the work and representation of the
same stock and spoke the same tongue as their
neighbours over the border. No doubt, we raised
regiments with grpat facility from the. Highland
clans, but so we did also from the population of
the Lowlands; and England, after all, supplies
more than its full proportion to the armies of
the Empire. What is the predominant impulse in
our own case ? Is it "necessity ?" So M.
Esquiros thinks, no doubt; but we could easily
upset the assumption. It is probably a mixture of
all'motives. Patriotism has clearly a share in the
business, for recruits always join eagerly at the
first symptom of war. Inclination has something
to do with it, as the turn of roving spirits testifies,
and we do not deny that when a lad " takes the
shilling" he is usually but ill provided with other
specimens of that coin. But the Artily is not so
much a refuge for the destitute as it is a resort for
the adventurous, the restless, and the unsteady,
who have been brought by these very tendencies
to the want of a calling, and who are tempted at
once by the offer of plenty and the prospect of
change to embrace the profession put invitingly
before them.—limes.