Young Knights of the Empire Part 22

HOW TO COOK YOUR FISH.

There are many ways of cooking your fish. The usual way is to fry him in a hot frying-pan. A slit should be cut in each side of the fish, as otherwise the heat is likely to burst his skin. A little salt and a pinch of mustard put in with the b.u.t.ter in the pan will add to his flavour.

But the simplest way, for you don't generally carry frying-pans with you when you go fis.h.i.+ng, is to cut a long stick that bends at an angle of forty-five degrees. Cut one arm to about one-third the length of the other. Trim the short arm with your knife till it is fine and pointed; pa.s.s this through the fish's mouth and then through the flesh near his tail, and toast him by the fire, back downwards, with a small lump of b.u.t.ter and a pinch of salt and mustard powder in his inside.

You will find him very good eating! A clean, flat stone makes a good plate.

THE FISHERMAN'S HAIL.

There, now I've told you how to catch and kill and cook your fish, I hope that you will soon be able to do it, and I wish you the old salutation which every fisherman wishes to another when they start out to fish, "A tight line to you," meaning that I hope you will get a big one on.

FOREIGN BOY SCOUTS

THE NORWEGIANS.

When my holiday in Norway came to an end, I was very sorry to pack up and come away. Even when I drove the last thirty miles in a cart to the railway I carried my rod in my hand, and when I saw a good-looking pool or run in a river--we were generally near a river--I stopped the cart for a few minutes and tried for a trout, and, what was more, I occasionally caught one!

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORWEGIAN SCOUTS WERE VERY LIVELY.]

At last I got back to Christiania and to proper clothes and clean hands--and I didn't like it a bit.

However, I was comforted by being told that the Boy Scouts wanted me to Inspect them, and I did so.

There was a parade of nearly eight hundred of them; fine, strapping, big lads they were, too, just like a lot of British boys, and dressed the same as us, and very lively and active.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NORWEGIAN FLAG. As you will see, it is something like the Union Jack.]

I had to present Colours to some of their troops, and their national flag is in some ways a little like our Union Jack. And I told them that they were as like British boys as their flag was like ours, and that their forefathers, the Nors.e.m.e.n, were mixed up with our forefathers in the old days, and I hoped that we would all be mixed together, in a friendly way, in these days--as brother Scouts.

THE SWEDES.

In England we are apt to look upon Norway and Sweden as almost one nation, but they are not so in reality. The Norwegians in the old, old days formed one nation with the Danes, but the Swedes have always been a separate nation which has never been under the rule of any other people. And they are very proud of this. So when I got amongst the Swedes, I found a totally different people, but they were equally kind and friendly to me, and they had an equally British-looking lot of Boy Scouts.

A large number of these had collected the day before I was to review them in Stockholm, and were camped there. So I went and saw them overnight in camp, and found them round their camp-fires, cooking their suppers, as jolly as sandboys. If they could do nothing else, they could, at any rates cook their food very well.

But they could do other things, too, as they proved next day at the Rally.

This took place on a big open sports ground.

The Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden were there to see them (the Crown Princess is the daughter of H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught, our President). Their Royal Highnesses are tremendously interested in the Scouts, and watched all that they did most keenly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SWEDISH BOY SCOUT AT THE RALLY.]

I heard many reports of the good work done by Swedish Scouts. Here is one:

A poorly-paid working man in Gothenburg found himself in great difficulties recently through his wife and two children being suddenly taken ill with diphtheria and removed to the hospital. He himself had to go to his work at the factory all day, but he had one of the children left on his hands, as well as the home to look after.

He got the wife of one of his neighbours to do this for one day; the next he came back home during the dinner-hour to see how things were going on, and he found his home all cleaned and tidied up, and a strange boy sitting on the floor playing with his child, while another was still finis.h.i.+ng the cleaning-up work.

When he asked who they were, they explained that they were Boy Scouts, and, having heard that he was wanting help in his home, they had come to give it.

You can imagine how grateful he was, especially as the Scouts kept on at the work for over two weeks until the mother had got well and returned to take charge.

One of those boys was the son of a rich man, while the other, his comrade, was quite a poor lad.

THE DANES.

In Denmark the Boy Scouts are strong in numbers and keen and good at their work. Those of Copenhagen gave a Rally in my honour, and twenty troops paraded and gave very good shows of scout work, each troop doing its own in turn. They seemed very good, especially in their cooking.

There were two very smart troops of Girl Guides also present at the parade, who cooked, too.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AVENUE OF CROSSED STAVES. Formed by Boy Scouts and Girl Guides at Copenhagen. I drove through it in a motor-car.]

The consequence was that when I began tasting some of their good dishes, I had to go and taste all, so that when the time came for the official dinner I had to attend in the evening I was already so "crowded" that I could not eat any of it!

When I drove away from the parade-ground after it was over, the Scouts and the Girl Guides made an avenue, crossing their staves overhead, through which I drove in my motor-car.

In Copenhagen, the Town Hall is the great "thing" to see. It is quite modern, only lately built, and is a magnificent building. One of the features about it is the lifts, which keep running slowly up and down.

They have no attendants in them. You simply have to jump in or out fairly quickly. I saw one stout old lady come and look at the lift.

She did not seem to like trying to jump in, but there seemed no way for getting it to stop for a minute; she looked helplessly around; then she had another look at it. The more she looked the less she liked it, and finally she gave up the idea of visiting the upper floors of the building, and went sorrowfully away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The lift in the Town Hall at Copenhagen is a continuous moving one--you have to jump in or out of it pretty smartly. Old Lady: "Shall I venture?"]

The Scouts in Copenhagen have been trained in first aid work by a First Aid Corps which exists in that city.

The Danish First Aid Corps is very much like our Fire Brigade. At the first aid station are motor-cars fitted up with things needed for almost every kind of accident, and they are ready to turn out at any moment that their services may be required. Their office is on the telephone with every police station, and when they get a call to an accident, the motor, with all appliances, leaves the station within thirty seconds of the alarm.

When I was there the alarm came that a man had been run over by a tramcar in Market Street. In a few moments a motor lorry ran out of the station equipped with lifting jacks and levers to raise the tramcar, while a second followed it immediately with stretcher and first aid appliances for the injured man.

In the station were kept all the things necessary for dealing with railway accidents, for rescuing people overcome with gas, for saving people in the water, and for pumping air into them when apparently drowned; there were derricks for raising fallen horses, and fire escapes of every kind. In fact, it was fitted up and manned by thirty men, all trained and prepared to deal with every kind of accident that could well happen.

Well, that's just what I should like to see done by Boy Scouts in our country towns and villages. They might make their club-room a first aid station, with as many appliances they could get together in the shape of bicycles, hand-carts, ladders, jumping-sheets, stretchers, bandages, spare harness, and with every Scout trained to deal with every kind of accident, or to form fence while others rendered first aid, and so on.

There might be some way of sending round or sounding the "alarm" when an accident was reported, to bring together in a few minutes the patrol whose turn it was for duty.

In this way Scouts would do most valuable work.