BOY "SEA SCOUTS."

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 62, 10 September 1910, Page 10

BOY "SEA SCOUTS."

TRAINING BRIGS FOR LADS. The Navy League has started a new and interesting enterprise. It proposes to establish training brigs for lads throughout the Old Country, commencing with a mode; brig for London. A national fund, to be administered by special trustees, is suggested, and to inaugurats tho fund a representative meeting was held at the London residence of the Duchess of Marlborough on 6th July. Mr. Mackinder, explaining the scheme, said they might go down 'to the docks and buy an old Thames sailing barge for a song. Then, all they had to do was to tow it either into a creek along the coastline, or up river inland. The boys would be taken aboard ana taught Swedish drill, rowing, signalling, and seamanship. They might even obtain from tho Government some old rifles, and possibly a field gun. They would then teach the boys rifle exercise and field gun drill, discipline, and a lesson or two u« patriotism. For about £400 they would probably have completed their biig. They needed to do what they could to save from the emigration societies those who ought to be saved. In this country they did not want to part with more of their good flesh and blocd than they could help. There wers 40,000 aliens employed in the mercantile marine, and two millions a year was being I paid to them. Lieutenant Carlyon Bellairs said they wanted a retired naval officer to father the .novement. The central idea was that mariners might be bred and increased in England. They wanted to increase the seafaring spirit.