THE FAILURE OF RECRUITS. LT') THE EDITOR OF THE "
SPECTATOR."J .
SIR,—After reading your article on " The Failure of Recruits,"
I think it may, perhaps, be worth while to tell you my experi- ence on the subject. I live near a small town, about ten miles south-east of London, where of late years, owing to vicissitudes in the building trade, there has been a good deal of pressure— not severe distress—but "slack work." I am sure that at least one-third of the lads of the place would gladly go into the Army, as far as their own choice is concerned. But the respectable parents are almost, without exception, against it. They have -still the idea, belonging, I suppose, to a past state of things Ow we are a slowly-moving set, in spite of our nearness to
London), that enlisting is the resource of a ne'er-do-weel ; and they also shrink from the separation, partly, perhaps, for the sake of the lad's wages, but mostly as a matter of feeling. They are not used to look forward to parting with their sons, nor broken-in to it by sending them away to school, as we are ; and, for the most part, the habit of reasoning is not strong enough to enable them to put this on one side, for the sake of a remote benefit. Now and then, a boy does carry his point and enlist, and then almost invariably he does well, and the parents become very proud of him ; but this has not hitherto happened often enough to remove the prejudice. Of course, the consequence is that the more steady and dutiful lads give up the idea.
From the more needy families, a larger number do try to enlist, but most of them fall short of the standard either of height or of health. You will object that I have used the words "respectable " and " needy " as necessarily opposed to each other ; but in practice, though not in reason, this is very generally the case among cottagers. at any rate here. Of course, I can suggest no remedy for the difficulty, and in other places the case may be different ; but if several ignorant persons will give their experiences, perhaps some wiser head may discover
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