LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
NATIONAL SCOUTS.
To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR:9 Sin,—For the last two years I have been studying what I call my district by means of bicycle-rides, each of which has varied from twenty to a hundred miles in length. My district has a diameter of from fifty to eighty miles. Draw a line from Grain to Greenwich, thence to Abridge, Epping, Hertford, Baldock, Hitehin, Dunstable, Wendover, Marlow, Windsor, Farnham, Tunbridge Wells, Rochester, and Grain, and you have the present boundaries of my district. Perhaps I should call it any principal district, for I know some others also. Subject to certain reservations, I know every prominent hill and river, every main road, and nearly every other road and village in this district. True ! I still have my weak spots. Thus there are three or four little districts like Enfield Chase, West Drayton, and Birling which I must finish off in my next dozen rides or so. I still find Farnham Royal puzzling. Again. I consider that I know a by-road after noting where it begins and ends. Nor do I make any pretence to the minute knowledge of the policeman, postman, and poacher; they can always teach me something. Further, although half-inch maps have long since ceased to be of use to me, I like to refresh my memory for names from the one-inch map. I do not know the public-houses, I am content to know the princi- 1 interior mosaic could be used. Whatever may be thought of pal ways through towns; and it is enough for me that- I can follow thirty or forty "different ways" out of London with the certainty of a 'bus. By "different ways" I mean roads which do not coincide for more than 10 per cent. of their distance, and which do not add more than 10 per cent, to the distance of the way. For the rest, I know the value of Shaoklewell Lane, Highbury New Park, Cavendish Road, and Foxley Road; I am at home in all the suburbs; I know the ins and outs of three Leighs, three Cobhams, three Hayes; of two Suttons, two Farnboroughs, two Green Street Greens, two Ashes, two Addingtons, two Southends, two Moor Parks ; of Seal and Seale, of Stansted and Stanstead, of Albury and Aldbury, of Sundridge, Sandridge, and Tandridge. I can go without map by three "different ways" to Tunbridge Wells, Rochester, Chelafield, Snockholt, Maidstone, Farnham, Wheathampstead, &a.; and by two "different ways" to most places in my district.
"Moth Liebehen was willst du mehr ?"
Do you wish me to join the National Scouts ? I refuse, for three reasons. First, I think it is as much the duty of Volun. tears to learn their way about this tiny, well-mapped country as it is their duty to organise, shoot, and (perhaps) drill. It is a step backward if you relieve them of this duty. Trust in a local guide—where such trust was far more excusable than it would be in England—led Gatacre to his ruin. Secondly, Volunteers are beginning to realise that this is one of their Chief duties, and to try to fulfil it. Why urge them to look outside for the help -which they can find inside their own ranks ? Why offer crutches to men with sound legs which they are learning to use ? Thirdly, I am already, and I intend to remain, a Volunteer. Let me repeat—policemen, postmen, and poachers could help me within my district. By all means enrol them if they are not already enrolled. But do not embarrass me with the superfluous help of others.—I [Our correspondent, a Volunteer officer, is perfectly right in insisting that Volunteers should know their country and should attend to guiding work. But even if we accept his view of the duty of Volunteers in this respect—and we do accept it in the fullest way—there still remains plenty of work for a corps of local Guides to do, and a real need for their organisation. It may often happen, indeed it is deliberately planned to happen, in case of invasion, that Volunteer and Militia regiments from inland towns like Birmingham or the Potteries will be placed and have to move in country which they cannot possibly have learned, be their intentions never so good. In such cases a local Guide organisation would prove invaluable. It is for this reason, and because it is the beginning of the organisation of the levee en masse or posse comitatua, that we so strongly support the Guide movement. —En. Spectator.]
Previous page
