MESSENGER BOY FEATS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 77, 30 March 1912, Page 13

MESSENGER BOY FEATS

BERLIN AND BACK IN 36 HOURS. Smart feats by District Messenger boys were suitably recognised at a prize distribution in the company's head ofces, St. Martins-lane, London. Two of the njuch-coveted "special medals for foreign service" were presented— one to Messenger Beal, tho other to Sergeant Attwooa, Beal was sent from the Piccadilly office about 8 a.m. on Sunday, 28th May, 1911, with a trunk and parcel for a Royal personage in Germany. Arriving at Calais about 1 p.m., he took express to the German frontier, and thence to Liege. There his journey was supposed to have finished, but he hod. a message to deliver, and found he would have to go to a junction near Berlin. Arriving there at 2 a.m., he completed his task, left at 3 a.m., returned by way of Brussels, Liege, Amiens, Boulogne, and Folkestone, and was back at the Piccadilly office at 5.30 on Monday evening. > Sergeant Attwood had a shorter journey. His duty was to go to Calais, meet th« Mediterranean express from Nice, receive from a certain conductor a packet of photographic plates, and bring them to. London. 'Ho left Cha ring-cross at 9 a.m. and was back with the packet at 5.12 p.m. In conversation with a London Daily Chronicle representative, Messenger Beal was very modest respecting his exploit. "I can speak French fairly fluently," he said, "and a lad knowing English and French has no difficulty in getting about anywhere. It was one of the Royal officials at Liege who told ma, to go on nearly to Berlin, but I should have done bo on my own initiative, for, having a message to deliver, I should of course have followed the person until I had found him. I had been to Belgium, to Rome, and three limes to Paris, so I am getting to be quite a seasoned traveller," he added. The District Messenger Company has now 800 boy« in ite service, and 220 of them were presented with vmedak for smartness and good service.