Boy Scouts.

   The St. Joseph's troop of Baden Powell's Boy Scouts has now been in existence for more than a year, and the review of its first year's activities which is contained in the annual report just issued shows that it has been doing extremely useful work. Some two or three months ago the troop was entirely reorganised in order to secure incorporation with the London Association, this step making it imperative that the Scouts should be British subjects. As a result the troop was weakened numerically, but it is satisfactory to be able to state that there was no diminution in the enthusiasm of the lads. At present there are 48 boys in the Senior Troop and 30 in the Junior Section. During the year the work of training these youngsters has been so thoroughly carried out that 70 have qualified as "Tenderfoots," 48 as Second Class Scouts, 33 have secured ambulance badges, 17 swimming and life-saving badges, 15 clerks' badges, 15 cook badges, 12 musician badges and nine have qualified as buglers.

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Useful Work.

   It is often thought that the Scouts are a purely military organisation, but that point is disposed of in the report, which indicates many directions in which the lads are healthfully employed in work of quite another character. Such, for instance, is the instruction given in swimming and life-saving, in first-aid to the injured, and the training given the lads to fit them to become self-reliant and observant. This sphere of activity is to be extended in the future, for the report states that the carpentering and "hobby" feature of scoutcraft is now to be introduced. There is a scheme on foot, too, for erecting a Scouts' Hall, for which a site has already been secured, and it deserves to be widely known that the boys themselves have undertaken to prepare the plot by levelling, etc., and will also carry out much of the interior work. The troop is evidently a very much alive organisation, and we wish it all success in the days ahead.