Page:Boy Scouts and What They Do.djvu/85

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Wireless.

Boy Scouts have taken up Wireless Telegraphy with great keenness, and there are now a large number of troops with their own wireless apparatus and a staff of operators. Some have fixed stations, while others take about with them portable apparatus which they can erect and get into working order in a wonderfully short time. Several troops in various parts of the country brought their apparatus to Birmingham, and stations were erected at Bingley Hall, at the Edgbaston Reservoir two miles away; at Perry Hall Park which is about four miles from the Hall, and at various other places in the neighbourhood. These were all in touch with one another and messages and orders were sent between these places by the Scout operators.

The Inquisitive Newspaper Man.

A newspaper man in search of a story lighted upon the Perry Hall camp, and thus describes his encounter with a Scout from north of the Tweed, who, like most of his countrymen, was sparing with his words. However, this does not seem to have affected the length of his story, for he dragged a few words out of the canny Scot and filled up the remaining space at his disposal with his soliloquies on them.

"I approached a boy who was leaning on a railway bridge at Perry Hall Park where thousands of Scouts are encamped. He had a dozen or so badges on his arm, shields as I thought for his vaccination marks. I asked him politely what they signified, and with a diffident air and a Scots accent, he explained that the badge bearing a cock's head meant he was proficient in the management of

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