I take it that most boys want to be good healthy runners and able to play at all the games, and I am certain that every Scout wants to Be Prepared to be a good healthy man for his Country.
Well, you can't do it if you begin by smoking as a boy.
Drinking begins, like everything else, in a small way; but it very soon grows on a fellow unless he is on the look out to stop it. More than half the crime in Great Britain is due to drink, and so is most of the poverty, and three-quarters of the insanity. And it is much the same with thoughts about women; they soon grow into wrong action, and if these are kept up they grow into habits which lead in an awful number of cases to misery, disease, and madness.
Brace up!
Be a man! Keep off these dangers.
If fellows around you are swanking in dirt, leave them and go elsewhere.
Don't let yourself BEGIN loafing about, taking drinks, talking smut, or doing what you know is wrong; give yourself bettor things to do—games, handicrafts, good turns, work, and you will grow up a clean, straight, and happy fellow, and, what is more—a man.
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MANLINESS IS NOT DIRTINESS.
Not long ago there was a lot of argument about certain music-halls in London. Many people were disgusted at the low and dirty talk or hints made by some of the performers. Most of these rotten ideas of half-dressed women, dancing about trying to look pretty, come from abroad, and do not really please the ordinary British man.