The San Francisco call., 1898-05-05
READY FOR
 DUTY'S CALL,
Mastering in of the Men of the First Infantry
 Regiment.

The First Infantry Regiment is under going the transition from State troops to regulars, and the work Is slow and un- interesting and surrounded by none of the pomp and circumstance of regiment going to the front fully organized and equipped.
 It was essentially doctors day, for upon the say so of the corps of surgeons before which the recruits, stripped naked, pranced and capered, depended the mfli- tary future of the citizen soldiers. Major Mccarthy, Captain Farrel. Captain Reth- CTS and Captain Rottanzi were the exam ming officers, and they spent the hours from half-past Il to late at night testing brawn and sinew and taking physical measurements.
 The order was that the troops be in readiness for muster at o'clock, and at that time most of the men were ready, but there were no scales upon which to weigh them, and there had been no suit able place fitted up as an examination room. Three hours passed before the necessary instruments were ready, and in the meantime a nice point of military regulations was argued and settled. Cap tain Darlington decided that the surgeons assigned to the regiment should be mus tered in with the rank of first lieutenant, for the rules of the army provide that no surgeon can hold rank above that of first lieutenant until he shall have served five years. Captain Darlington maintained that to muster the surgeons as captains (and in the case of Dr. Mccarthy as a major) would be to jump them over five years in a day; but he and Governor Budd argued the point, and by the time the scales were ready 1t was decided to muster in the surgeons with the rank they held in the guard. AS the surgeons had declined to be mustered except under those conditions, the final decision solved what might have turned out vexing problem.
 The surgeons mustered in with the First Regiment are: Major Mccarthy, Captain Farrel, Captain Rethers and Captain O'Brien. Dr. Rottanzi has been on duty with the Fifth Regiment, and was on the examining board under detail from head quarters.
 the headquarters of the regiment in the shape of a telegram from Washington in forming the mastering officer that each regiment must have twelve companies and each company no more than eighty four men and officers nor less than eighty. This being settled, it was decided to mus ter in first four companies, then major; then four more companies and another major, forming two battalions; and then to muster in a ieutenant-colonel; then to muster the remaining four companies and over all, and last of all, the colonel and such staff as the regulations will allow him. As a preliminary, however, and by direction from Washington. the regi- mental adjutant, Captain Alfred J. Kel- leher, and the regimental quartermaster Captain A. B. c. Dohrmann, were detailed to duty on the work of muster, and so it came to pass that those two were the first ordered to duty as volunteers.
 Then the cheery call of the bugle as- sembed the men of Company A, which was first to pass under the medical eye. It lined up in the big drill hall over a hundred strong, and then in squads the men were sent to the company room, where they stripped. and then they entered the presence of the examining surgeons.
 Name and age came first, married or single, occupation and address, and then up on the scales to be weighed by one doctor while another took the mans height Some did not even get as far as this, for the little men were spotted at once, and the lame and halt as well as the partially blind were weeded out as soon as their defects were made apparent by the first general glance which each