The weather this morning was beautifully hot and fine, but in the afternoon it suddenly changed to cold, windy, and steady rain. Numbers of ladies and children had gone out for a day on the beach or in the country. In one case a woman and her two children had to come back part of the way in an open boat, and then in a steam-launch, in their summer clothes, without umbrellas or waterproofs.
A Scout who was there seemed to have foreseen bad weather, as he had two waterproof coats, and he gave up one and offered it to cover the children.
"Well!" you would say, "that is easy enough, and he kept himself dry and snug in the other."
No, he didn't, he put that on the woman, and went and did the best he could for himself on the lee side of the deck; he put a smile on and pretended that a cold trickle down the back is a good thing for the complexion; and that is what any other Scout would have done in the circumstances.
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GALLANTRY OF BOY SCOUTS IN HELPING THE POLICE.
On different occasions I have had the pleasure of issuing Silver
Medals to Scouts for gallantry in saving life or assisting the police.
Scoutmaster Crowther, of the Huddersfield Boy Scouts, went to the assistance of a police constable who was being violently assaulted by some roughs in a slum. Although he was knocked about himself in doing so, Crowther managed to help the officer, and, by blowing his whistle, to get more police on to the scene. The principal offenders were arrested, and ultimately got six months' imprisonment from the magistrate, who at the same time highly complimented Mr. Crowther on his plucky action.
Scout P. L. G. Brown, of the 7th (All Saints) Southampton Troop, did much the same thing. He saw a police constable struggling with four violent roughs, and, although there was a hostile crowd round them, Brown remembered his duty and dashed in to help the officer. Although he got a kick on the knee, he was able to get hold of the policeman's whistle and to blow it, and in this way brought more police upon the scene, so that the four men were arrested and punished.
Brown himself went away without giving his name or making any fuss about what he had done, but he was discovered and later on received the Silver Medal.