IN BUSINESS AS A RECRUITER.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVLL, Issue 4275, 14 September 1895, Page 4

IN BUSINESS AS A RECRUITER.

Starting out as a recruiting sergeant is much like running a circus.

After reaching a new town, and having duly recorded my arrival,! don my colours, and form myself into procession through the place, giving away small handbills and getting poaters stuck up everywhere to properly advertise my presence.

Then I start recruit hunting in earnest. 1 have to be up early, and, as a rule, tramp four or five miles to various points where I may expect to meet victims.

It is easy enough to get hold of wouldbe soldiers ; but it is not at all easy to enlist a sound one. One man is too short, another has slighHy defective eyesight, a third may be suffering from one of the many ills that flesh is heir to.

On one occasion I thought I had got a fine haul. Fonr strapping young fellows came up to me, and said they wished to serve the Queen. On examining them I found that all were fit but one, whereupon the other three turned tail and said, • they wouldn't join unless Bill could get in.' " Won'c go for a soldier, unless Tom and Jack can get in," is a very familiar cry to the recruiting sergeant. Very often two friends wish to join at once, and if one is unsuitable the other promptly declines.

In the part of the country in I have mostly worked we enlist a good many well-dressed young fellows, often sons of gentleman. " Had a row with the governor," is not an unusual cause for enlistment.

More than one have joined the ranks because they have been jilted. As a rule thssa gentlemen are all bought out in a week or two.

On one occasion a wooden-legged man tried to enlist, and he was deeply grieved when I informed him that he would not pass the medical examination.

On the whole recruiting sergeants are popular, but we are not at all liked by mothers, sweethearts, and wives, and very trying scenes have I had with mothers whose sons have enlisted unknown to them.