In the lower quarters of Portsmouth and other seaport towns such scenes were of frequent occurrence. The whole system had among its other harmful effects a very damaging influence on the Navy itself and on its discipline. The press-gang was not very choice in making up its contributions of recruits for the fleet. No great pains were taken with a view to obtain certificates as to character and conduct. Those who formed the recruiting expedition were only too ready to seize any strapping young men whom they found loitering about the streets and lanes of the lower quarters in a seaport town. These strapping young men often turned out to be rising young men of the criminal classes, but their limbs and muscles made them like some of Falstaff's recruits, "good enough to toss--food for powder," and they were promptly swooped upon and carried off to serve in his Majesty's Navy. Such captives as these, when put on board a vessel of war and compelled to serve as seamen there, had the influence which might have been expected from them over the habits of the whole crew. {266} The severest and even the most savage methods of discipline were often found necessary to force such men into habits of obedience and into anything like decent conduct. Flogging then, and for long after, prevailed in the Navy and in the Army, and one of the most familiar arguments in favor of keeping up that form of discipline was found in the fact that in many cases the new recruits might have corrupted the habits of a whole ship's company if they had not been compelled by frequent floggings to obey orders, submit themselves to rules, and conduct themselves with decency.