CHAPTER XXVI. EFFECTS OF ENLISTMENT—MARTIAL TENDENCIES—THE SHE BARRACKS—THE DUBLIN GARRISON—AN ARTILLERY AMAZON—A COLONEL OF DRAGOONS—DONNYBROOK FAIR—THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.
In one of the preceding pages I stated that "the military enrolments relieved our district of a great number of loose characters, whose abstraction was very salutary to our community." I subsequently expressed an intention to submit to my readers "some remarks that might be considered interesting, and perhaps important."
It is unnecessary to particularise the numerous varieties of objectionable tendencies and habits, any of which will be considered sufficient to constitute the person exhibiting them "an undoubted scamp." In Dublin and its suburban districts, society has never been free from the evils incident to the existence of such disreputable characters; but I fully believe that we are not more tainted by them than any other part of the United Kingdom of equal extent and population. The three regiments of militia embodied at the commencement of the Crimean war relieved us of some hundreds of loose, disorderly, or dishonest fellows, the riddance of whom produced a very desirable decrease in the custody cases of our police-courts. However, at the termination of the war, those regiments were brought back, and disembodied in the locality where they had been raised; and many persons might reasonably expect very disagreeable and injurious results from the return of those whose departure was regarded as a happy riddance by the community from which they had been abstracted. But very few instances occurred of the discharged militia-men relapsing into disreputable habits and criminal practices. Military service had produced a great and most desirable reformatory effect. Supervision, strict without unnecessary severity, with the adjuncts of regular and wholesome diet, comfortable clothing and personal cleanliness, emulation in the efficient discharge of duty, and the incitements arising from the preference accorded in various minor appointments and employments to the well-conducted soldier—all these, together with a change from the scene of previous improprieties and disreputable associations, strongly tended to generate a desire for improvement, and the acquisition of a new character. Similar results were observable in reference to the last enrolment and subsequent disembodiment of those regiments consequent on the outbreak and suppression of the Indian mutiny. I wrote to the late Lord Herbert of Lea, then Mr. Sydney Herbert, and Secretary of State for War, in reference to the reformatory results, which I attributed to military influence. He read my letter in the House of Commons when moving the army estimates, and excited much laughter by stating that he did not think it expedient to mention the name of the writer or the regiments to which the communication referred.
My eldest son was a lieutenant in the County of Dublin Militia, which, soon after being embodied, was stationed at Waterford. One morning he was crossing the barrack yard from his quarters, to serve on a regimental court-martial, before which some disorderly or insubordinate characters were to be brought, when he was accosted by the wife of one of the delinquents. She earnestly besought him not to be very severe on "poor Larry," and that it would be a hardship if he got worse treatment in Waterford than he'd get in Dublin for a little spree. She added, "The owld gentleman, your father, long life to him, never put the poor fellow up for more than a week at a time."
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.