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Recruiting Sergeant
A recruiting sergeant is a British or American soldier of the rank of sergeant who is tasked to enlist recruits. The term originated in the British army of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The playwright George Farquhar served as an infantry officer, and the characters in his play ''The Recruiting Officer'' (1706) are drawn from life. The unscrupulous methods used by some to trick the innocent have been the subject of several traditional songs composed by their victims as a warning to others, popular examples being the Folk music of Ireland, Irish traditional song ''Arthur McBride'' and the Scots ''Twa Recruiting Sergeants''. A recruit would be given the King's shilling as a mark of the contract made. The term has passed into the English language to mean any set of circumstances which recruits or fails to recruit volunteers to the army. See ''Daily Telegraph'' headline The CIA is al-Qaeda's best recruiting sergeant' See also * Impressment, Press gang - Officially s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recruiting Sergeant
A recruiting sergeant is a British or American soldier of the rank of sergeant who is tasked to enlist recruits. The term originated in the British army of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The playwright George Farquhar served as an infantry officer, and the characters in his play ''The Recruiting Officer'' (1706) are drawn from life. The unscrupulous methods used by some to trick the innocent have been the subject of several traditional songs composed by their victims as a warning to others, popular examples being the Folk music of Ireland, Irish traditional song ''Arthur McBride'' and the Scots ''Twa Recruiting Sergeants''. A recruit would be given the King's shilling as a mark of the contract made. The term has passed into the English language to mean any set of circumstances which recruits or fails to recruit volunteers to the army. See ''Daily Telegraph'' headline The CIA is al-Qaeda's best recruiting sergeant' See also * Impressment, Press gang - Officially s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergeant
Sergeant ( abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other units that draw their heritage from the British light infantry. Its origin is the Latin , 'one who serves', through the French term . The term ''sergeant'' refers to a non-commissioned officer placed above the rank of a corporal, and a police officer immediately below a lieutenant in the US, and below an inspector in the UK. In most armies, the rank of sergeant corresponds to command of a squad (or section). In Commonwealth armies, it is a more senior rank, corresponding roughly to a platoon second-in-command. In the United States Army, sergeant is a more junior rank corresponding to a squad- (12 person) or platoon- (36 person) leader. More senior non-commissioned ranks are often variations on sergeant, for example staff sergeant, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Farquhar
George Farquhar (1677The explanation for the dual birth year appears in Louis A. Strauss, ed., A Discourse Upon Comedy, The Recruiting Officer, and The Beaux’ Stratagem by George Farquhar' (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1914), p. v. Strauss notes that "Our sole source of information as to the time of his birth is the entry of his matriculation in the register of Trinity College" on 17 July 1694, where "His age is given as 17." Earlier biographers took this to mean Farquhar was in his 17th year—hence born in 1678—and Strauss favors this date. But later writers, such as William Myers, ed., George Farquhar: The Recruiting Officer and Other Plays'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. vii, give the dual year, and John Ross, ed., ''George Farquhar: The Recruiting Officer (New Mermaids),'' 2nd ed., (London: A&C Black, 1991), p. xiii, gives a birthdate of "''ca.'' 1677" for the playwright. – 29 April 1707) was an Irish dramatist. He is noted for his contributions to late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Recruiting Officer
''The Recruiting Officer'' is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury (the town where Farquhar himself was posted in this capacity) to recruit soldiers. The characters of the play are generally stock, in keeping with the genre of Restoration comedy. Characters Plot The play opens with the recruiter, Captain Plume's Sergeant Kite, recruiting in the town of Shrewsbury. Plume arrives, in love with Sylvia, closely followed by Worthy, a local gentleman who is in love with Sylvia's cousin Melinda. Worthy asked Melinda to become his mistress a year previously, as he believed her to be of inadequate fortune to marry. But he changes his mind after she comes into an inheritance of £20,000. Melinda accepts an invitation from Captain Brazen, another recruiter, to annoy Worthy, as she was offended by Worthy's previous offer. However, her maid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Music Of Ireland
Irish traditional music (also known as Irish trad, Irish folk music, and other variants) is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland. In ''A History of Irish Music'' (1905), W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that, in Gaelic Ireland, there were at least ten instruments in general use. These were the ''cruit'' (a small harp) and '' clairseach'' (a bigger harp with typically 30 strings), the ''timpan'' (a small string instrument played with a bow or plectrum), the ''feadan'' (a fife), the ''buinne'' (an oboe or flute), the ''guthbuinne'' (a bassoon-type horn), the ''bennbuabhal'' and ''corn'' ( hornpipes), the ''cuislenna'' (bagpipes – see Great Irish warpipes), the ''stoc'' and ''sturgan'' ( clarions or trumpets), and the ''cnamha'' ( bones).''A History of Irish Music: Chapter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur McBride
"Arthur McBride" (also called "The Recruiting Sergeant" or "Arthur McBride and the Sergeant") is a folk song (Roud 2355) probably of Irish origin, also found in England, Scotland, Australia, and North America. Describing a violent altercation with a recruiting sergeant, it can be narrowly categorized as an "anti-recruiting" song, a specific form of anti-war song, and more broadly as a protest song. A. L. Lloyd described it as "that most good-natured, mettlesome, and un-pacifistic of anti-militarist songs". Content The song's narrator recounts how he and his cousin or friend, Arthur McBride, were strolling by the sea when approached by three British Army soldiers: a recruiting sergeant, a corporal, and a little drummer. The sergeant tries to entice the pair to volunteer with a recruitment bounty and smart uniform, but they refuse the prospect of being sent to fight and die in France. The sergeant takes offence at the uncivil tone and threatens to use his sword, but before he c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's Shilling
The King's shilling, sometimes called the Queen's shilling when the Sovereign is female, is a historical slang term referring to the earnest payment of one shilling given to recruits to the Armed forces of the United Kingdom in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, although the practice dates back to the end of the English Civil War. To "take the King's shilling" was to agree to serve as a sailor or soldier in the Royal Navy or the British Army. It is closely related to the act of impressment. The practice officially stopped in 1879, although the term is still used informally and there are some cases of it being used still in the early 20th century, albeit largely symbolically. British Army A recruit was still entitled to return the shilling until becoming subject to military law upon formal attestation before a Justice of the Peace. At this point, a more substantial bounty was paid to the new recruit, which fluctuated from two guineas to a high of £23/17/6d in 1812. However, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impressment
Impressment, colloquially "the press" or the "press gang", is the taking of men into a military or naval force by compulsion, with or without notice. European navies of several nations used forced recruitment by various means. The large size of the British Royal Navy in the Age of Sail meant impressment was most commonly associated with Great Britain and Ireland. It was used by the Royal Navy in wartime, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice can be traced back to the time of Edward I of England. The Royal Navy impressed many merchant sailors, as well as some sailors from other, mostly European, nations. People liable to impressment were "eligible men of seafaring habits between the ages of 18 and 55 years". Non- seamen were sometimes impressed as well, though rarely. In addition to the Royal Navy's use of impressment, the British Army also experimented with impressment from 1778 to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
