BOY SCOUTS. D

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15603, 30 May 1916, Page 2

BOY SCOUTS. D

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE TRESS." f| Sir, —I shall be glad if you would E kindly correct a false impression likely In to bo caused by your report of my §| speech to Avonside and other soout n troops assembled at the Drill Hall on g Saturday last. Your reporter has at- H tributed a lot of sayings to me that 1 I never uttered, and has apparently miß- jj understood what he did hear. Possibly | this was due to the noise of gun-teams I at artillery drill. After expressing my | pleasure at seeing the Christcnurch j§ 1 Scouts, and telling the Avonside troop, | in particular, that they were the finest | troop of scouts I had ever seen, and ■ that this was the first time I had seen j a troop worked satisfactorily by its own jj leaders, who rmist have acquired a great g deal of tact and common-sense to enable them to run things as smoothly, I pointed out. more from a feeling that undiluted praise is bad for any troop, than anything else, that there were cer* T tain minor details I should like to see improved. I did not say that "on parade leaders spoke to their scouts aa no srouts should be sr>oken to." "What I did comment on was the use by a leader of a boy's nick-name on parade, which happened to bo "Darkie," reminding me more of a shepherd working sheeivdo.es. "Stir up, I>arkie." was not a phrnse used either by the leader in question or bv me, and the matter was so trivial that I confess 1 nm unable to understand your reporter's anxiety to insist on it. —Yours, etc.. R. FT? \NfTS JOYCE. j Provinoip] Secretory, Wellington i Province, 3>.8.5. [ -*