LORD BADEN-POWELL

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 111, 13 May 1933, Page 17

LORD BADEN-POWELL

HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY

The defence of of Maf eking during tho Boer War aid tiis of: the Boy Scout inovernent';,arc '..the "two things which tho public associate."with the name of Baden-Powell. In his "Lessons from the 'Varsity of Life" he remarks that the importance of the Mafeking incident has been much exaggerated. He has had, he says, two lives. Tho second and much the better known did not really begin until the first was over, until at a comparatively early age he had retired from the Army, covered with honours and haying reached almost the highest rank of his profession, having become a lieu-tenant-general dnd been Inspector-Gen-eral of Cavalry. It is well that he should have devoted so large a proportion of his autobiography to tho first life. " Tho record of that helps to explain tho extraordinary success of. the second; it shows What were the foundations and tho experiences which enabled him, to become the organiser and inspirer of one of tho most'important and flourishing social movements of the modern world. Among the many stories told in this autobiography:' Ho says that he has hanging on his wall a notice board, with writing in French, English, and Flemish. Its owner was a supposed cripple, who sat on a trolley in Ypres during the war. -The notice says: "Kind friends, I stood in the ice-cbld water, and rescued a child from drowning, and have no use of my limbs. Help me. . . . " Soldiers used to give the man an occasional franc note. One day a note blew ' away* A soldier picked it up and handed it back, but. he noticed that it was not a note. It was a slip of paper with some German,writing .on it. The soldier reported the incident. It was found that the man was not a cripple. He was a German agent, who sat in Ypres and received reports from spies. At night he sent them, to the German lines. He was! shot. Lord Baden-Powell kept the notice board "ris a memorial," he says, "of a brave man."