EVANGELINE BOOTH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22545, 12 April 1935, Page 10

EVANGELINE BOOTH

SALVATION ARMY CHIEF BELIEF IN SPORT FOR WOMEN (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 3. General Evangeline Booth, world chief of the Salvation Army, is having a triumphal tour of Australia. She has not yet reached Sydney, having approached this continent from the west, but in Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne she has had successively splendid recep-. • tions, with her immediate followers showing the utmost fervour. The meetings she has addressed have been attended by huge audiences. The conclusion of the three Australian capitals she has so far visited is that General Booth has some of the marked qualities of her father, General William Booth. She is fair, looks 20 years younger than her 68 years, and is a good advertisement of Amy life. There is only a slight sign of grey in her almost reddish-brown hair, which fringes with a profusion of curls the facings of her bonnet. There is just a trace of the American twang in the intonation of her voice, due to the fact that she lived for many years in the United States. Her English is good and nicely expressed. She has the power of introducing a tremolo into her voice, which has a timbre which must be very effective in her work. Her sense of humour is strong, and she has a business outlook, for, as she remarked', it docs not matter whether you are conducting a factory, a hotel, or the Salvation Amy, you must know your job. General Evangeline Booth evidently does. She is a keen advocate of outdoor sport for women. She thinks javelin throwing, discus throwing, running, hurdling, swimming, diving, tennis, cycling and horse riding develop camaraderie and a fairness of outlook which are beneficial to the interests of the Salvation Amy. She personally favours swimming, diving, and horse riding. “At Lake George, near my home in New York,” she said, “ I have an Olympic diving platform, with springboard. I am an exponent of your. Australian crawl, but I get?greate- pleasure out of diving. I enjoy diving at midnight into the darkened pool. There is something about the inky blackness that has a fascination for me. Right through my life I have been animated by a fixed purpose. If I set my mind to do a thing I do it. One must have strength and decision. So it is that when I go for a swim, perhaps I might say to myself, ‘ I will swim five miles,’ and 1 will do so.” General Booth confessed that she is not conservative in her choice of tonings, and style of her swimming suits. She has one of white and one that is striped. With considerable pride, she related that she was the first woman cyclist in Great Britain to cycle 115 miles in me day. That was more than 30 years ago, when all England was caught in the cycling craze.