Part 15 (1/2)

By doing things which you would not care to do before your father or mother, you are becoming a bit of a sneak. You do these things secretly, you are not straight.

A fellow who is not straight at starting is pretty sure to go on being crooked for the rest of his career. He knows all the time in his inmost heart that he is a sneak, and he can therefore never take a pride in himself and others are bound to find it out sooner or later, so he never gets a real friend nor a good employer.

Then these things are likely to do him bodily harm.

Smoking is poison to a growing lad. It may not do you much harm if you take to it when you are grown up; but while you are still forming your muscles as a lad it is almost certain to do damage to your heart, your wind, your digestion, and very likely your eyesight and teeth.

I take it that most boys want to be good healthy runners and able to play at all the games, and I am certain that every Scout wants to Be Prepared to be a good healthy man for his Country.

Well, you can't do it if you begin by smoking as a boy.

Drinking begins, like everything else, in a small way; but it very soon grows on a fellow unless he is on the look out to stop it. More than half the crime in Great Britain is due to drink, and so is most of the poverty, and three-quarters of the insanity. And it is much the same with thoughts about women; they soon grow into wrong action, and if these are kept up they grow into habits which lead in an awful number of cases to misery, disease, and madness.

Brace up!

Be a man! Keep off these dangers.

If fellows around you are sw.a.n.king in dirt, leave them and go elsewhere.

Don't let yourself BEGIN loafing about, taking drinks, talking s.m.u.t, or doing what you know is wrong; give yourself bettor things to do--games, handicrafts, good turns, work, and you will grow up a clean, straight, and happy fellow, and, what is more--a _man_.

MANLINESS IS NOT DIRTINESS.

Not long ago there was a lot of argument about certain music-halls in London. Many people were disgusted at the low and dirty talk or hints made by some of the performers. Most of these rotten ideas of half-dressed women, dancing about trying to look pretty, come from abroad, and do not really please the ordinary British man.

Harry Lauder is delightfully funny, but he is funny without being dirty, and so is Chevalier, the coster singer. Dan Leno made you laugh, but he was never dirty--and that was why he and these other singers have been so popular.

I saw a performance not long ago, where a half-dressed woman came and danced about on the stage, but, though she was tremendously advertised as the great attraction of the place, she got very little applause.

Soon after her there came a bright-looking girl in ordinary clothes, who merely sang an English ballad, but she was cheered and applauded till she had to come on again and sing a second, and even a third time.

I believe that the proper, manly Britisher likes a good clean show on the stage; he likes to have a good hearty laugh, or to hear good music, but I believe it is only a very few (and those nearly all slackers and wasters) who care to go and see the nasty, half-indecent shows which come sometimes from other countries.

THE ORDER OF THE BATH.

In the old days when being made Knights, members of the Order of the Bath used to go and take a bath as part of the ceremony. I was very glad to see in Hull during a visit there that at the Boys' Club every boy on coming into the club has a bath.

In the first room he comes into on entering the club he takes off all his clothes and puts them in a rack made for the purpose. Then he goes into a big warm plunge bath, from which he goes into a drying-room, and beyond this is a dressing-room, where he gets a club s.h.i.+rt and pair of shorts to wear for the evening, till it is time to get into his own clothes to go home again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRITISH SOLDIERS SURPRISED THE FRENCH NATIVES BY THEIR EAGERNESS TO HAVE A WASH, EVEN ON ICY COLD MORNINGS.]

This daily bath is an excellent thing for keeping a fellow healthy and strong--and the most important part of it is the rubbing with the towel.

Well, it is often difficult for a Scout to get a bath. Sometimes in his home there are no means for doing it, and often out on the veldt or desert there is very little water, but if he has a towel, especially a damp one, he can always give himself a good rub down with it--he should scrub himself well all over! and that is what I should like every Scout to do every morning when he gets up. It will not only keep him clean, but will make him grow far more healthy and happy and strong, because it cleans the skin and wakes up the blood so that it rushes through his veins and brings him health.

So get yourself a towel, every Scout; and carry out your rubbing every day when you get up.

In the same way see that you clean your teeth regularly night and morning--not because it will help you to pa.s.s the time away, but because it will prevent your teeth from getting rotten, thus saving you from toothache.