RECRUITING BOUNTIES
Cash bounties were sometimes used to attract men to the Colours, the amount varying with the need for men. In 1859 during the threat of war with France, each recruit received 3 pound. Substantial sums such as these encouraged drunkeness, desertion and fraudulent enlistment. Recruiting officials received a fee for every man they enlisted. In 1859 the sum of one pound seven shillings and six pence was shared between the recruiting party and the superintending officer. This of course encouraged recruiters to employ every possible deception in securing recruits.
Recruiting advertisements after 1870 set out the terms and conditions of service more clearly, and recruiting officers were instructed to remove their offices from inns and other public drinking places. Any recruit who could prove that he had been misled on enlistment was given a free discharge, and the expenses incurred were charged to the recruiter. Enlistment bounties which encouraged fraudulent enlistment and desertion were done away with in 1870.
REFERENCE:
SKELLEY, A.R. The Victorian Army At Home: The Recruitment and Terms and Conditions of the British Regular, 1859-1899. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 1977, pp. 240 and 243.