To join the army was regarded as a last resort by working men out of employment, and recruiting figures rose in times of bad trade. 2 Edward Cardwell,

the reforming War Secretary in Gladstone's 1868-74 Government, hoped that the suspension of the branding of deserters (with a large letter D), and the abolition of flogging as a punishment on home service would attract a superior category of men into the army; but this did not happen. Pay remained low - less than a shilling a day - and barrack accommodation was primitive. Irishmen provided about a quarter of all army recruits in the 1870s, even though the Irish amounted to only about one-sixth of the total population. Professed Nonconformists, who would in general have been working men of a superior type, constituted only ~ per cent of recruits. During the early days of the Boer War the Daily Mail (28.12. 1899) explained how fear of 'personal degradation' deterred the better-educated from joining the army. A clerk's black coat, however shabby, was the badge of a gentleman: 'but if he exchanges it for a red coat he sinks immediately into a condition of pupilage and servitude, with the prospect of promotion to be the valet of an officer'. The introduction of some form of compulsory service, though often discussed, never seemed likely. It was widely regarded as an infringement of traditional English liberty. Army officers came from the upper and upper-middle classes, especially from families with landed connections.3 The Protestant Irish gentry provided a disproportionate number of officers, including the three leading late-Victorian army heroes - Lords Wolseley, Roberts, and Kitchener. These generals became household names through their victories in colonial wars; but the officer class at large remained remote from the Victorian business middle classes.