SCOUT NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 74, 24 February 1938, Page 7

SCOUT NOTES

GALLANTRY IN SHANGHAI. YOUNG HEROES CARRY ON. (By “Tenderfoot.”) Despite the grave danger of bombing in and around Shanghai, Chinese Boy Scouts have undertaken their duties of helping other people. Their services of helping in the hospitals and other places can be looked upon as nothing less than heroic, and under the inevitable danger they still persist in carrying on, says an articje in the Scouts’ weekly news bulletin. Just after high explosives had dropped on Shanghai young Chinese Scouts performed heroic service in searching for the dead, dressing the slightly injured with bandages improvised from blood-spattered piles of material, and acting as stretcher bearers. One of these young boys performed a task from which many a grown man would have shrunk. A lift in a building had been halted between the ground and first floors as the explosion cut off power. Blood streamed from the cage, the door of which, had been partly opened by some injured person before death had ended attempts at self-preservation. A ladder was run up to the cage, but the opening was too small for an adult. A Scout went up, hesitated before what he saw, then threw down a pith helmet filled with blood and performed the gruesome task of removing the dead. An early morning bombing raid, raining deatli on Per-hsin-cliing Village for twenty minutes, was another scene described in which Boy Scouts, police and other charity workers rushed to rescue the wounded. The destruction covered a wide area and up to a late hour scores of volunteers were still busily engaged in extricating bodies pinned beneatn the debris. Simultaneously, bombing was going on in Chowkacliiao in the Jessfiekl district and many civilians were killed. Shortly after the raid every available fireman, policeman and Boy Scout, together with those who had received civic training, was summoned to the scene of terror to rescue the wounded.

Boy Scouts, together with Girl Guides, are also helping in refugee camps, and attending the wounded soldiers in emergency hospitals. Officials of the French Concession Service Sanitaire have found the Scouts and Guides extremely useful. Tlie Scouts and Guides have been attending ill daily shifts. Scouts have also acted as disciplinarians for the children, both with or without parents. Within 15 feet of each other two interesting incidents occurred simultaneously—while a father held his screaming infant, a doctor swabbed its throat; and just opposite, in a ropedoff area, a Scout of perhaps 17 years belaboured the open palm of a youngster who apparently could be placed in tlie refractious class.

When a group of journalists were being shown round the hospitals in tile Chinese territory and were taken to the Vienna Garden, a dancing ball which was turned into an emergency hospital almost overnight to accommodate the wounded, they discovered dancing partners and Roy Scouts were attending the needs of the wounded. The stories of the work of these gallant Scouts have been extracted from the North China Herald. FOUNDER’S DAY PARADE.

The annual Founder’s Duy parade was held at St. Paul’s Church, Broadway. ’The preacher was Rev. J. C. Draper, of East Belt Methodist Church, Christchurch. The attendance was good, over 180 Scouts, Cubs and Guides being present. TROOP NOTES 4th Palmerston North (All Saints’) Troop.—At our meeting held on Friday, the 18th, tlie inspection was won by the Kingfisher patrol. Tlie Scoutmaster gave tile troop some revision on the tenderfoot badge. This was followed by an inter-patrol competition on the Scout Jaws. The patrols afterwards went to their corners to do sec-ond-class-work. A game of dodge-ball followed.. Several boys were given the cook’s and swimmer’s badges. West End.—-The YY'est End troop held its parade last Monday night in the Scout Hall. Tlie names of the two patrols are now the Kingfisher and the Seagull. D. Humphreys is patrol-leader, with I. Daveys as bis second, of the Kingfisher patrol. T. Fletcher is patrol-leader, with R. Ta-

whero as his second, of the Seagull. Patrol colours were given to all boys with uniform. Tenderfoot and Morse signalling were taken as the work on Monday', good progress being made in each subject.