MARTIAL TENDENCIES.
During the period of my magisterial duty, I almost invariably discharged the afternoon business, by an arrangement with my colleagues, which tended to their convenience and mine. The attestations of recruits were very seldom taken in the morning, and consequently they were generally made before me. At the commencement of the Crimean war, recruiting was very rife, and I was frequently appealed to by the recruit as to the particular place in which the regiment for which he was enlisted was stationed, inasmuch as he had bargained to be sent "where the fighting was going on." This desire could not be attributed to any excitement arising from sudden caprice or whim, or from indulgence in liquor, for the attestation was never administered until twenty-four hours had elapsed after enlisting, and unless the recruit appeared perfectly sober, and aware of the responsibility which, with his own free will, he was required to assume.
There was a man named Roger Tobin, who lived somewhere about the classic locality of Stoneybatter. He appeared to be about twenty-five years of age, tall, strong, intelligent, healthy, and handsome. There were at least a dozen public-houses which the recruiting sergeants frequently visited at the time of the Crimean campaign, being then in quest of the martial spirits to whom pay, booty, promotion, and military glory were promised as certain acquisitions, all considerations of danger or death being left unmentioned and ignored as improbable or impossible. Roger would enter one of these houses, having previously ascertained that the sergeant had not yet arrived, and he would locate himself in a chair or on a bench close to a table, and order some moderate refreshment. He manifested an intense anxiety as to the most recent news from the seat of war, and generally succeeded in making the proceedings of our army the subject of conversation amongst the persons present. When the collector of future heroes appeared, he was sure to be greeted by Roger with the warmest wishes for his success in providing gallant hearts and strong hands to repel the encroachments of Russia. The poor Poles would be commiserated, and our brave French allies eulogized. Every topic calculated to excite martial feelings would be adverted to by the enthusiastic Roger. Such expressions would naturally lead the sergeant to conclude that he might calculate on one recruit accompanying him back to barracks, and his request or suggestion of immediate enlistment met with a ready acquiescence. The magic shilling having been paid, the new recruit would spend it in an additional libation, and address an earnest exhortation to any young fellows then present to follow his example. The sergeant would not be slow in giving a further advance, the application of which to convivial purposes might procure him two or three additional adherents. Ten shillings, or perhaps more, having been joyously spent, Roger was informed that he was to accompany the sergeant, and any others who had joined, and receive accommodation in the barrack, from whence he would be brought next day to the police-court for attestation. Promptly acceding to this direction, and raising his fine manly figure, he left the table, and enabled the disgusted sergeant to perceive that his recruit was clubfooted, and totally incapable of ever being put in marching order. How the expenses incurred were afterwards liquidated, whether the sergeant was the loser, or the liability devolved on the recruiting department, I am unable to state, but I fully believe that Roger repeated the same trick on many occasions. It would seem that each sergeant did not wish to be the last victim, and consequently none of them disclosed the deception to the new comers, or to those in other parts of the metropolitan district. Roger's game was spoiled by a warning communicated to the recruiting stations from the police.