OLD
JEWELLERY OLD
SILVER
OLD WATCHES OLD IVORIES
If you have anything of this kind to dispose of we shall be glad to have it, and can offer good prices
We are always open to purchase fine examples of Antique Silver
and
Sheffield Plate
A. & J. SMITH Jewellers, Gold and Silversmiths 191
UNION
STREET
ABERDEEN
A. C. LITTLE COSTUMIER & FURRIER. Always in Stock a Large Selection of Model Costumes and Model 2-Piece Suits, Furs, Fur Coats, Fur-lined Coats, Wraps, Coat Frocks, Costumes, Dresses, Jumper Suits, Showerproofs, Skirts, etc. ALL AT THE VERY KEENEST PRICES.
INSPECTION IS INVITED.
EXCEPTIONAL VALUE IN MOURNINGS. The Largest Selection of Black Costumes, Coat Frocks, Dresses, Coats, Skirts, etc., in the City, at the Keenest Prices. Fit is Guaranteed within 6 hours, and no Charge is made for alteration.
"THE HOUSE FOR VALUE"
105 UNION ST., ABERDEEN. OPEN ALL DAY SATURDAYS. Telephone 523.
SOCKS MATCH
3/6
4/6
JAMES FYFE & SON PAINTERS
GLAZIERS.
AND .
.
•
OFFICE AND SHOWROOMS:
11 DEE STREET, ABERDEEN. Telophorie 304.
Telegrams—" Fyfe, Painters "
WILLIAM GRAY Tailor and Outfitter, HOLBURN JUNCTION, ABERDEEN. We are Outfitters to the Grammar School, and hold Stocks of everything for present and former pupils. Your patronage will be esteemed. 'PHONE 2211. ESTABLISHED 1886.
BOOKS - - - - BOUND
v
, IA; ij
7' 4:4-: 6
. .-
1
7/-4
f
should lilts
to tains cilia onortunity at expressing Try entire satisfaction with the excellent wore you have done for or.
WM. JACKSON
BOOKBINDERS
(ABERDEEN) LIMITED
ABERDEEN
18 BACK WYND
Established 1855.
Telephone No. 291
-
I .3
e
,....O., •
-
The Bureau of Travel.
I
Travel by Boat, Rail, Motor, or Air. and TOURIST OFFICE, where An Up-to-date SHIPPING, PASSENGER everything is arranged in connection with travel.
MACKAY BROTHERS & COY., 35a Union Street, Aberdeen,
Are at your service, and can arrange TOURS, CRUISES
at Home and Abroad.
CONTINENTAL TRAVEL--CONDUCTED OR INDEPENDENT. Agents :—Polytechnic Touring Association ; George Lunn's Swiss and Italian Tours ;
Guild ; Sir Henry Lunn's Dean & Dawson's Tours; Free Church Touring Tours ; Frame's Tours, etc., etc.
ROUND THE WORLD TOURS.
Madeira Islands, Health and Pleasure Tours and Cruises to Norway, Canary and Mediterranean, Northern Capitals of Europe, etc., etc. Sleeping Berths, Seats, L. and N.E. Rail Tickets issued and dated in advance. and Compartments Reserved. Pleasure Parties catered for.
SHIPPING. Routes. OFFICIAL AGENTS—All Lines, Allwhere necessary.
PASSPORTS, also VISE, arranged FOREIGN MONEY Bought, Sold, or Exchanged. Latest Information always available.
fels.
Worldwide,
A.J.S., 7.99 H.P. combination, from £80 ; 4'98 H.P., from £56 ; 3.19 H.P., from £44. SUNBEAM, 3.47 H.P., from 63 Gns.; 4'92 H.P., from 72 Gns. LEVIS, 2'47 H.P., from £29 18s. 6d.; 3.46 H.P., O.H.V., £54 12s. 0d.
G. CUMMING, ALFORD
PLACE
(HOLBURN JUNCTION). Telegrams—. INLET."
Telephone 2405.
DECORATOR y':letoari-b-gire'rracaMeetalee/ir P— SPECIALIST —,,,erv CC— STAINED GLASS & .
MURAL DECORA 0 adearbv,orm-a
A. D. COPLAND, F.I.B.D.
Telephone No. 1891.
ARCHIBALD M cKELLAR Family Grocer and Wine Merchant,
454-456 Union Street, Aberdeen. . . We -Specialise in
•
•
Cooked Gammons, " Sinclair's" Belfast Smoked Hams, " Harris's " Wiltshire Bacon.
Medicinal Wines—Vibrona, Hall's, Wincarnis, Glendenning's.
Henderson Bros. 59 St. Nicholas Street. GRAMMAR SCHOOL BLAZERS, all sizes, CAPS, BELTS, TIES, BADGES, &C. GRAMMAR SCHOOL WHITE SWEATERS, all sizes, now 6/11, were 10/6. Boys' Strong Wearing Suits, 15/6 to 45/-. Long Trouser Suits, 35/6 to 60/-. White or Grey Flannel Trousers. Specialists in Boy Scouts', Girl Guides' and Brownie Outfits. • PHONE 424.
59 ST. NICHOLAS STREET.
Telephone No. 1524.
Telegrams : " Bruce, Cycles, Aberdeen."
Established 1884.
GEORGE BRUCE & SONS Holborn Motor and Cycle Works,
18 HOLBURN STREET, ABERDEEN. Wireless Goods of every description at lowest Prices. GENERAL ENGINEERS, MOTOR and CYCLE AGENTS. Motor Cycle Agencies : Quadrant, Ivy, and Omega. (Any other make supplied at liberal discounts.)
We Specialise in Repair Work of all makes of Cars, Motor Cycles and Cycles. CHARGES MODERATE.
Works, I ALFORD LANE.
Royal (Dick) Veterinary College EDINBURGH. Principal : O. CHARNOCK BRADLEY, M.D., D.Sc., Al.R.C.V.S.
-
After attendance on Complete Courses of Instruction in this College, Students may proceed to the Examinations for the Diploma of Membership of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (M.R.C.V.S.), and for the Diploma in Veterinary State Medicine (D.V.S.M.). Students of the College may also present themselves for the Degree of Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in Veterinary Science conferred by the University of Edinburgh. The College being recognised as a Central Institution under the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, Students are eligible for Bursaries granted by the Education Authorities of Scotland. A Copy of the College Calendar may be obtained on application to A. C. DOULL, Secretary and Treasurer.
THE ROYAL ATHENAEUM RESTAURANT AND GRILL ROOM
-
-
- -
(Opposite Town House).
Choice Selection of Old Vintage Champagnes and other Wines. Large selection of Havana Cigars and Foreign Liqueurs. TABLE D'HOTE DINNER FROM 6 P.M. AT 5s. 6d. Special Arrangements for Private Parties. Tel. No. 2273. Telegrams: Athenaeum.
A. C. MITCHELL, Manager.
John.Falconer&(3.
(FAMOUS FOR A
cemruar
4 QUARTER
FOR OVAL /Fr
4
VALUE.
)
(Royal ,J7reacie Warehouse ABERDEEN
Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Made from Selected Materials which can be relied on for the utmost wear, combining Smartness with Economy. Y1—Boys' Fawn Covert Coats, single- Y3—Boys' Suits, smartly cut from breasted, plain back. To fit 8 to 11 selected Tweeds. To fit 8 to 12 years. years. Prices 32/6 to 45/6. Prices 28/6 to 48/6. Y2—Well-tailored Suits of Plus-Fours, Y4—Overcoats for Spring Wear, in in smartly-designed Tweeds. To light and dark Fawn Coatings, fit 14 to 17 years. double-breasted with belt at back. To fit 2 to 5 years. Prices 24/6 to 42/6. Prices 58/6 to 93/6. Grey Flannel Suits (Blazers anti Grammar School and Gordon's College Shorts), to fit 5 to 12 years. Blazers, best quality Flannel. Prices 15/6 to 28/6. Prices 21/6 to 32/6. Fawn and Brown Flannel Suits Shorts to match. Prices 10/11 to 13/6. (Blazers and Shorts), to fit 5 to 12 White Sweaters, with Grammar School years. and Gordon's College colours. Prices 23/6 to 49/6. Prices 12/6 to 16/6.
W. LUMSDEN & SON 58 UNION STREET, ABERDEEN.
GROCERIES, PROVISIONS, :: WINES and SPIRITS, :: ALL
OF
HIGHEST QUALITY.
HAVANA CIGARS in Great Variety. Telegrams: "TRAVELLED, ABERDEEN."
'PHONE 260.
Telephone 274
Established 1770
SIVIPSON & WHYTE LIMITED
Tailors ol' . . Ladies' & Gentlemen's Garments ALSO
Naval, Military, and Clerical
8 ALBYN PLACE, ABERDEEN
ESTABLISHILD
1843.
PRINTING.
Wm. Cay & Sons
The . .
Central Press
funerat tinbertahers,
(JOHN MILNE),
General Printer, Lithographer,
415 UNION STREET AND
209 GEORGE STREET,
AND
Stationer,
ABERDEEN. Motor Hearses and Cars for Distant Funerals.
61-63 Belmont St., ABERDEEN.
Telegrams—"Cay, Aberdeen." • PhOWIS Nos. t2 and 54.
Telephone No. 809.
ESTABLISHED I818.
BY APPOINTIIIINT
To H.M. THE KING.
J. WILLIAMSON & SON (W. B. WILLIAMSON, PROPRIETOR),
Meat Purveyors and Poulterers 1, 2, & 3 MARKET BUILDINGS ('Phone 452),
ABERDEEN Branches :
U FOUNTAINHALL ROAD ('Phone 1724).
THE SQUARE, CULTS ('Phone, Cults 2).
FRED HARDIE
D. Wyllie & Son
Photographic Artist,
247 Union Street,
416 Union Street,
Aberdeen.
ABERDEEN
4
4
Wyllies' Bookshop, Aberdeen ; Prompt service ; prices keen ; Established --One-eight-one four ; Car service at our door.
For every style of In- and Out-Door Group, Composite Groups & General Portraiture, Etc.
What to do, 'Phone 402.
Commercial Photography Our Speciality. Telegraphic Address :
AT POPULAR PRICES.
"Wyllie, Bookseller, Aberdeen"
TELEPHONE 851.
GET YOUR MUSIC AND EVERYTHING NECESSARY FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF THE ART AT
JAMES MACBETH 261 UNION STREET ABERDEEN
T
HE Firm was established over 80 years ago, and has been in the same family for three generations, with a PRACTICAL PIANO-MAKER as Proprietor in each generation. Telephone No. 235
Telegrams : " Macbeth, Aberdeen"
For Drawing Instruments & Materials
TYPEWRITERS New or Second-hand —Large or Small— Special Second-hand Bargains in
PICTURE FRAMER AND ARTISTS' COLOURMAN
YOSTS, . . from £4 10/OLIVERS No. 9, from £5 15/REMINGTONS, from £7 0/UNDERWOODS, from £9 0/-
TAYLOR
OVALS, finest Typewriter made, from £9
SCHOOLHILL
ABERDEEN
C. H. WEBSTER
Telephone 2870.
ALFORD PLACE ABERDEEN
Gem Rings qf Superior Quality 41E7 t)(? ,iv WE specialize in this particular branch of our business, and request your kind inspection of our large and varied selecticn of
GEM RINGS AND PEARL NECKLETS
GEO. JAMIESON & SON NEXT UNION BRIDGE, ABERDEEN "THE WALTHAM WATCH DEPOT"
111•••
SCIENTIFIC APPARATUS Microscopes and Microscopical Apparatus. Students' Requisites Slide Rules. Mathematical Instruments. PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIALS
x
Chemical, Physical, Bacteriological Glassware. Thermometers, Hydrometers Acids. Filter and Test Papers.
Get your Photographic Requirements at
D. S. Allan's Pharmacy 35 HOLBURN STREET (Near Holburn Junction). Photographic Department.
NICOL SMITH CO., 37 Belmont
St., ABERDEEN.
Telephone 1315.
A Large Stook of Cameras, Plates, Films, Papers, and Accessories. Dept for Kodak: and Kodak Supplies. Developing and Printing executed by an Expert and delivered in 24 hours.
'Phone 1624
MILNE & MUNRO Bootmakers
263 UNION STREET Trust the fitting of your Boy's feet to us—Aberdeen's Practical Bootmakers
Aberdeen's Leading Shoemakers 60 years ago Make us your Scientific Shoefitters TO-DAY 'Phone 1028
ELLIS & M`FIARDY STREET. 18 REGENT QUAY & 130; UNION
Importers of Household and Steam Coals. Delivered by Careful and Experienced Drivers. Telephone 2889.
George Bisset Complete Outfitter _
and Hatter,_ •
. ,
`51~11
"- .
-
HIGH-CLASS TAILOR AND CLOTHIER,
ABERDEEN.
FOR
BOYS,
YOUTHS, AND GENTLEMEN.
PIANOS of ALL GRADES FROM CHEAPEST DEAREST
TO
AT
PATERSON, SONS and MARR WOOD'S 183
UNION
STREET
Largest Stock in North of Scotland
CASH
OR
INSTALMENTS
HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE.
Aberdeen's Premier House of Entertainment and one of the Finest Theatres in the British Isles.
For full particulars of this week's Programme see Theatre Bills or Advertisements in Daily Press or Tram Cars. Lessee—WALTER GILBERT.
Telephone Nos. 1881, 1882.
Acting Manager—W. LOTHIAN GILBERT.
Telegraphic Address: "Plaster, Aberdeen.''
JAMES SCOTT & SON (Aberdeen), Ltd. Fire Grates :
Cooking Ranges
Antique and Modern.
4‘1,
Mantelpieces
Independent Water Heaters.
Wood and in Marble.
Inquiries regarding Genuine Old Chimney Pieces and Fire Grates solicited.
Marble, Mosaic, Terrazzo and Tiles , Fire-places, Walls, and Floors.
Thermostove "—combined Cooker and Water Heater.
Address :
483-485 UNION STREET, ABERDEEN.
TAILORING Suits, Overcoats, Di ess Suits, Costumes. READYMADES Men's Suits and Overcoats, Boys' Suits and Overcoats, Showerproots, Waterproofs, Sports Jackets, Blazers, Flannel Trousers.
~ a } Ue
HOSIERY Latest Styles in Hats, Caps, Ties, Collars, Hose, Socks, Handkerchiefs, Shirts, Pyjamas, Gloves, Underclothing. Pullovers. SPECIALITY Complete Highland Outfits for Boys.
A. & J. SCOTT 29 GEORGE STREET ABERDEEN Tailors, Clothiers, and Outfitters A visit and an opportunity to serve you will be greatly appreciated Telephone No. 2299
CONTENTS. PORTRAIT OF MR. ALFRED MACLEOD .. .. THE DONORS OF THE SHANGHAI PI CLOCK .. •• • • .. SCHOOL CRICKET 1ST XI . . .. SCHOOL PREFECTS .. ..
Between pp. 182-183 •,
A MESSAGE TO FORMER PUPILS .. .. .. • • THE SHANGHAI CLOCK . . .. .. .. .. THE SHANGHAI F.P.S • • • • .. .. .. .. NOTES ABOUT OLD BOYS • • • • . . • • . •• AN F.P. COMPANY OF THE GORDONS .. • • • • • • 'TIS FIFTY YEARS AGO : III-ELOCUTION : MR. ALFRED MACLEOD • • • • • • • • • • .. . . BLAMING THE SCHOOL-A REMINISCENCE • • .. . • AN ELEPHANT HUNT IN THE SUDAN . . •• • • • . " IF YE BE TRUE MEN." AN EMPIRE DAY ADDRESS . . .. SOME PERVERSIONS AND A DIVERSION • . . . .. TOBACCO HARVESTING IN NORTHERN RHODESIA .. • • SAINT COLUMBA .. • • .. . . .. .. • . SCHOOL NOTES . . .. . . . . .• .. SCOUT NOTES • . • • .. . . .. . . SCHOOL CRICKET . . • • • • •• . . . . • • SCHOOL OFFICE-BEARERS FOR 1926-1927 .. .. •• THE FORMER PUPILS' CLUBCLUB COLOURS •• . . • • .. .. • • CLUB CONSULS • • • • • • • • • • PROPOSED SOCIAL CLUB ROOM .. • • • • CRICKET SECTION. TENNIS SECTION. LONDON SECTION. MOTOR SECTION • • • • .. •• • • LIST OF NEW MEMBERS . . • • .. . . • •
11 I / , 0
Page 149 „ 151 152 „ „ 154 172 .. „ „ „ „ „ „ „ „ „ •f
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173 178 179 183 192 202 203 205 207 209 212
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213 214 216
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217 218
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1836
ESTABLISHED
NORTHERN ASSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED -
Assets
£22,300,000
-
Life Branch. With Profits Section.—The Bonus to Policyholders for the 5 years ended 31st December, 1925, was at the rate of 55/- per cent. per annum on the sum assured. Non-Profit Section.—The rates of premium are very low. Such Policies secure the maximum immediate Assurance at the minimum of cost, and should appeal to those who favour a guaranteed contract.
CHIEF OFFICES:
ABERDEEN -
-
-
1 Union Terrace.
-
-
-
1 Moorgate, E.C. 2.
LONDON
Aberdeen Board of Directors.
A. S. R. BRUCE, ESQ. The Right Hon. The EARL OF CAITHNESS, C. B. E. D. M. A. CHALMERS, ESQ. Manager
.
.
FRANCIS J. COCHRAN, ESQ . GEORGE M. COOK, ESQ. GARDEN A. DUFF, ESQ.
A. MARTINEAU, ESQ. -
R. MACKAY, F. F.A.
ALL CLASSES OF INSURANCE.
aberbeen &amnia School Maga3ine Vol. XXX.
JUNE, 1927.
No. 3
The " Grammar School Magazine " is issued under the auspices of The Former Pupils' Club, in March, June, and November. All communications with regard to the" Magazine " should be addressed to the Editor (the Secretary and Treasurer of the Club), THEODORE WATT, M.A., The Rosemount Press, Aberdeen. "•• Members of the Club are requested to inform the Secretary of any change of address.
A Message to Former Pupils. The Summer Term is almost at an end. In two weeks' time—crowded weeks at that—we shall have scattered to the four quarters seeking the rest and the refreshment of body and spirit which sceptical outsiders, denied our prerogative, refuse to believe that we need. Climatically it has been a disappointment. Was there ever a Summer Term in which we saw less of the sun or one which played such havoc with cricket pitches ? We have no interest in the coming Solar Eclipse. For us the period of total obscuration has been sufficiently prolonged, and the portent, however welcome to the impoverished railways, frankly leaves us cold. Now for the incidents of the Term. I am afraid the Editor finds me in a protesting, not to say rebellious, mood. To chronicle the obvious and the customary and thus broadcast to the limits of the earth—such is the Magazine's range—what is familiar to every Grammarian's experience may serve as a stimulant to memory, but it must remain at that. You know what happened in your own time—how you discussed cricket form or, possibly, the limits of evasion of your allotted tasks—how Inspectors came and looked inscrutable and perversely asked you the few things you didn't know or happened to forget that morning, with one eye all the time on the blue official papers and pencilling your doom or your acquittal as the case might be—how you challenged
150
.
Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.
the Masters at cricket and wondered how their unquestioned and unquestionable aptitudes could be so limited in their range—all these things are in the category of the familiar and the story will not bear a second telling. Still, on the supposition that quicquid agunt pueri is of perennial interest to those whose boyhood is not too distant a memory, I proceed with our domestic annals, such as they are. Building and reconstruction are the order of the day. The new Gym. is practically finished, and evokes a variety of comment, not all of it favourable. What is unquestioned is the added comfort of ample floor space and the welcome exchange of fustiness and Stygian gloom for sunshine and fresh air. The laboratories will be overhauled and apparatus brought up to date. If Mr. Edward were a retailer of commodities and not a teacher of Science, his present balances would involve him in instant and serious conflict with the Department of Weights and Measures. Athletic activities are in full swing, and sprinters are making feverish efforts to knock seconds off their times. The appeal which I made in a former issue of the Magazine for sports prizes has met with an encouraging response. A few days ago your Consul in Singapore offered to found a prize for Athletics, qualities of leadership being also a determining factor. The President of your Club for last year has gifted a Silver Cup for the best all-round athlete in 1927, and I have other donations for individual events. To these generous donors we tender our sincere thanks. Nothing is more encouraging to the boys than your personal interest, and nothing cements more closely the bond that exists here between past and present. The intimation of the " Shanghai Clock" aroused the liveliest interest and satisfaction. The value of the gift is enhanced by the knowledge that it was made at a time of peculiar difficulty and anxiety to the donors. Thank you, Shanghai! School was photographed last week in four ,panoramic groups, and a fine showing they make. I wish Magazine finances made it possible to reproduce these pictures. No better evidence could be produced of the vitality of the School —nearly 1,000, all told—and of the promise of the present generation. Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. When you visit us, you must ask to see them. The Swimming Sports on the 10th June must have surpassed all records for attendance. All the events were keenly contested, the enthusiasm reaching its climax with the House Team Race, in which Keith came home with a comfortable lead. The conditions under which swimming practice is carried out are the reverse of satisfactory, and things will not be right
Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.
151
till we have Baths of our own. I believe that plans are docqueted in the Education Offices, and it is to be hoped that the stumbling-block of finance will not prove insurmountable. One other suggestion and I conclude. A proposal has been made by the Territorial Force Association that the former School Company of the 4th Gordons should be revived. The splendid record of that Company in the War needs no restatement here. I ventured, however, to express the view that, so far as the present pupils are concerned, a more adequate contribution to national service would be the formation of a Junior O.T.C. This would bring us into line with other schools of our class and would, I am confident, have the most favourable re-actions on the School. It is not suggested that the Scouts be supplanted: but there is a difficulty in absorbing older boys in responsible work in the Scout Movement, and the University Contingent would gain by the change. Proposals along these lines will be submitted at the beginning of next session. Now I have told my tale of bricks, and it remains to convey to you, one and all, the School's greetings, and, for such of you as have holidays in prospect, the hope that in satisfaction, if not in duration, they will not fall below the standard of your School days. D. M. A.
The Shanghai Clock. The intimation made in the last issue of the Magazine of the gift to the School from Former Pupils resident in Shanghai of a Clock for the Tower has been received with great pleasure not only by those more immediately connected with the School but also by the citizens of Aberdeen generally. Formal intimation of the gift was made by the Secretary of the F.P. Club to the monthly meeting in April of the Secondary Schools Management Committee of the Aberdeen Education Authority. The Convener of that Committee, Rev. Professor George Pittendrigh, D.D.—himself a past President of the F.P. Club—in moving that the Committee recommend the Authority to accept custody of the Clock, expressed the appreciation and indebtedness of the Committee to the Shanghai Branch of the Former Pupils' Club for their thoughtfulness and generosity in presenting this very acceptable gift to the School. Attention was directed to the desirability of having the Clock illuminated at night for the benefit of the citizens, and the Committee recommended the Authority to grant a remit to the Finance, Law, and Works Committee to take any necessary action in connexion with the installation of the Clock, and to take up the matter of lighting with the Town Council.
152
Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.
At the April meeting of the Education Authority the Chairman said that it would be the wish of the Authority that they be associated with the Secondary Schools Management Committee in acknowledging with gratitude the handsome gift to the Grammar School from Former Pupils of the School now in Shanghai. He regarded such thoughtful generosity as but another illustration of the far-reaching influence of the Grammar School and the place it held in the affection of Former Pupils. At a meeting of the Aberdeen Town Council on 6th June a letter was read from the Aberdeen Education Authority stating that its Finance, Law, and Works Committee were unanimously of opinion that, if possible, provision should be made for the Clock being lighted at night. It was thought that, as this was a matter which would benefit the citizens generally, in all likelihood the Town Council would be prepared to become responsible for the lighting, it being understood that the necessary lighting apparatus would be provided when the Clock was being installed. The Council without discussion unanimously agreed to assume responsibility for the lighting of the Clock. A short time must elapse before it is possible to get all the details in connexion with the installation of the Clock finally settled, but it is hoped that it will be placed in position and set agoing in the early autumn. Meantime the Education Authority is arranging to remove to another position the big bell which at present hangs in the Tower, and to prepare the Clock Chamber for the reception of the Clock. As several of the donors of the Clock are at present home from Shanghai, it is hoped that it will be found possible to hold the Presentation Ceremony while they are on furlough.
The Shanghai F.P.s. As was mentioned in the last issue of the Magazine, the Fourth Annual Dinner of the Shanghai Branch of the F.P. Club was held on 25th February,when 14 members were present. The outstanding feature of the Dinner was the decision to offer to the School a Clock for the Tower. A group photograph was taken of those present at the Dinner, and a copy of this has reached this country and is reproduced in the present issue of the Magazine. The following are notes on the members of the group, in the order in which they appear in it :— Stewart Duncan Begg (1909-10) is in the service of Messrs. Butterfield & Suire. William Elder Smith (1904-09) is in the service of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd.
A berdeen Grammar School Magazine.
153
David M. Whamond (1900-02) is in the service of Messrs. Butterfield & Suire, in charge of the China Navigation Company at Shanghai. Randal Walker Robertson (1892-94) was formerly manager in Shanghai of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China, and is now a member of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. William Robertson Myers (1895-99) is Assistant Commissioner of Customs in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. Charles Brown Ogilvie (1902-04) is Assistant Engineer to the Shanghai Waterworks Company. Alexander Munro Halley (1904-12) went out to Shanghai last year and is with Messrs. Theodor & Rawlins. Harry Henderson Gow (1909-17), M.B., is a Naval Surgeon in one of His Majesty's River Gun-Boats. William Nicoll Buyers (1906-10) is on the staff of the Union of Canton Insurance Society, and is now stationed at Hongkong. Herbert Brebner Scott (1905-08) is in the service of the Royal Insurance Co., Ltd. Edwin Garland Tait (1892-94) is manager of Small Investors, Limited. George Alston Buyers (1906-08) is a partner in the firm of Messrs. Thomson & Co., C.A., and is the F.P. Club Consul. Shao Ying Yeh (1913), M.A., LL.B., is in legal practice. Tony Alexander Thomson Begg (1909-10) is general manager and secretary of Messrs. L. Moore & Co., Ltd., fire loss adjusters. Three F.P.s associated with the Branch who were unable to be present at the Dinner are :— James Yule Miller (1897-1900), manager to Messrs. Danby & Co., insurance agents, Hankow ; Edward John Harper (1909-14), Detective Sergeant in the Shanghai Municipal Police ; and John Runciman Nisbet (1908- 09), engineer in the service of the China Navigation Company. T. A. T. Begg, S. D. Begg, H. B. Scott, and D. M. Whamond have recently come home on holiday. The members remaining in Shanghai on 18th May entertained to dinner five F.P.s who are at present serving with the Shanghai Defence Force, including Colonel-Commandant P. B. Sangster (1884-88), C.M.G., D.S.0.
154
Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.
*." It is requested that the Editor be informed of all new appointments and interesting incidents in the careers of Former Pupils.
The dates given in parentheses after names indicate the sessions of attendance at the School. THE LISTER CENTENARY.
Two Former Pupils took a prominent part in the Centenary Commemoration at the beginning of April of Lord Lister's birth :— Sir William Watson Cheyne* (1863-68), Bart., K.C.M.G., C.B., F.R.S., delivered an address to a meeting of the Listerian Society in King's College Hospital, London, on the afternoon of the first day of the celebrations. In an article in the Aberdeen Press and Journal at the time of the Commemoration it was recalled that in October, 1872, Cheyne was studying medicine in Edinburgh and one day took shelter from the cold east wind in the old Infirmary. It was the hour 12 to 1, and he had no class. He found a crowd of students hurrying, some actually running, along the corridors towards the operating theatre. Lister was giving a lecture. The theatre was crowded, and the student audience overflowed into the gangways, many standing all through the lecture. The young medical, as yet ignorant of surgery, saw a man of 45 sitting on a chair with his legs crossed. This was Lister. But Cheyne had soon little leisure for observation. He was too busy taking notes in a book intended for quite a different subject. On the road to his lodgings he bought a " superior notebook," into which the lecture was transcribed. This notebook, containing Cheyne's notes of the whole course, now reposes with the other Lister relics in the custody of the Royal College of Surgeons. During that memorable hour Cheyne developed for Lister and for surgery an enthusiasm that has never waned. Having finished his medical course at Edinburgh, Cheyne spent almost a year of study on the Continent before returning to Edinburgh in 1876 as house surgeon to Lister. In Strassburg andyienna he found the greatest enthusiasm over Lister and his work. One professor actually asked Cheyne to come and show him exactly how Lister dealt with his cases. * Indicates Member of Former Pupils' Club.
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Cheyne's service as house surgeon in Edinburgh was very brief. One Sunday morning in the spring of 1877 he was sleeping in the house surgeon's room, when he was awakened by someone shaking him. It was Lister, to ask if Cheyne would go with him as house surgeon to King's College Hospital, London. When delivering his lecture at the Commemoration, Sir William described how Lister had given him this invitation and had also invited three other students. He said that they all looked on their selection as an unbelievable honour. Their only aim was to do their part of the work as carefully as possible, and thus show unbelievers the truth of every claim made for Lister's methods. He thought at that time that Lister had struck a poor type of student at King's College Hospital and was unhappy about it. He found later that the secret of the supposed want of enthusiasm was that examining bodies did not favour Lister's methods, and the students were afraid to mention the subject ; in fact, they were so afraid that they did not learn Lister's views until they had passed their examination. William Bulloch* (1877-80), LL.D., F.R.S., who is the Goldsmiths' Company's Professor • of Bacteriology in the University of London, at a meeting at the headquarters of the Royal Society of Medicine in the afternoon of the second day of the celebrations, dealt with Lister's work as a bacteriologist. He said that his qualifications to address the gathering were twofold—he had read all Lord Lister's writings and made a critical study of some, and he had had the great privilege of knowing Lord Lister for thirteen years in a manner which, considering the great disparity of their positions, was almost intimate. As bacteriologist of the British Institute of Preventive Medicine he had to visit Lord Lister, the chairman of the Institute, almost weekly in order to report to him the progress of the work in the Anti-toxin Department. When Professor Bulloch first knew Lister, in 1895, he was 68, and he frequently saw him down to 1907. He last saw the great man in a bath-chair by the roadside at Walmer on a lovely s'-nny morning—the 26th of E ecember, 1909. He was then 6'4 and was approaching the lonely end of his splendid career. " Both then and now," said Dr. Bulloch, " he stands out to me as a most impressive personality. I have known very many of the leaders in our profession at home and abroad during the last 30 years, and have no hesitation in placing him facile princeps medicorum." After giving an estimate of Lord Lister s scientific work, Professor Bulloch said that no one could come into contact with Lister without being impressed by his noble personality, his magnanimity, his liberality and his modesty. His aims were of the loftiest kind, and probably no medical man ever kept more steadfastly before his gaze the covenants of the Hippocratic Oath.
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George James Allan* (1907-20), M.A., M.B., is at present House Physician at the Royal Aberdeen Hospital for Sick Children. Christopher Charles Barnett* (1915-21), M.A., B.D., is to be ordained as assistant at John Knox Parish Church, Aberdeen. The decision of the Presbytery of Aberdeen to proceed with the ordination was the subject of a petition of dissent and complaint at the recent General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and it was there decided, in view of the special circumstance of the case, and without creating any precedent, to recommend the Presbytery of Aberdeen to allow for a three months' probation at least, as from the date of the Assembly. Wilfrid Philip Barron* (1896-1903), A.M.Inst.C.E., was in December last appointed chief engineer to the Karachi Port Trust, Karachi, India. Edmund Blaikie Boyd* (1900-12), M.A., of the Home Civil Service, acted as Secretary to the Colonial Office Conference, which opened on 10th May and concluded on 31st May. He consequently had a very busy time, as the Conference held 25 plenary meetings, and in addition there were 14 meetings of committees. A summary of the proceedings of the Conference was issued on 1st June. James Anton Bremner* (1916-19) has taken up an appointment with the Mooply Valley Rubber Co., Ltd., Palapilly P.O., South India. He was previously on an estate in Tanganyika Territory. Harry Ernest Johnstone Brown* (1920-24), who has been in the George Street Branch of the North of Scotland Bank, Aberdeen, has received an appointment in the National Bank of India, Ltd., Bishopsgate, London. John Malcolm Bulloch* (1877-80), M.A., LL.D., President of the F.P. Club, was in April elected President of the London Critics' Circle of the Institute of Journalists. In proposing the election of the new President, the retiring President said that Dr. Bulloch's interest in the theatre was an absorbing one, yielding in that respect only to his loving work of research into Gordon genealogy, of which he usually bore about him little tartan-bound volumes. They all knew his scholarship, and also that under the granite of his Aberdeen accent he kept a loyal and kindly nature. Henry Jackson Butchart* (1890-99), D.S.O., B.L., who commands the Aberdeen University Contingent, Officers' Training Corps, was in May awarded the Territorial Decoration. Major Butchart is well known as Secretary of the University of Aberdeen.
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Robert Henderson Calder* (1921-24) has just left Aberdeen to take up an appointment with the Australian Tessalated Tile Co., Ltd., Melbourne. Joseph Davidson Carnegie* (1877-80), pastor of the Congregational Church, Stamford, Lincs, was appointed in October last Chaplain to Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, Primitive and United Methodist Officers and Men of the Central Flying School, Royal Air Force, Wittering, near Stamford. Arnold B. David Cassie* (1919-20) graduated B.Sc. at Edinburgh University in July of last year with first class honours in physics. He is at present at Christ's College, Cambridge. George Leslie Cassie* (1919-20) has received an appointment as Assistant Inspector in the Taxes Department of the Inland Revenue. Sir William Watson Cheyne* (1863-68), Bart., K.C.M.G., C.B., F.R.S., and Sir David Ferrier* (1854-58), F.R.S., are to receive in July the Honorary Degree of LL.D. at the annual Degree Congregation of Birmingham University. ANOTHER WARNING ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA.
Andrew Clark* (1895-1901), M.A., who has been for 19 years in South Africa, and since 1917 Secretary and Treasurer of the Cathcart School Board, Cape Province, in a recent letter refers to the short article about the settlement of F.P.s in South Africa which appeared in the last issue of the Magazine. He says : " To come out here now on spec. and trust to picking up a job is a very risky thing to do, and as for settling on the land with a view to farming, a settler, however well educated, industrious, and willing to work he may be, must have capital, and a good amount of capital too, if he wishes to succeed. The farms are so extensive in area and so difficult to acquire at a reasonable figure that a newcomer finds the utmost difficulty in getting what he wants, and in the meantime the capital that he has is dwindling rapidly. On the other hand, the political conditions are such, and the native problem so bound up with everything in this country, that a large influx of British—I emphasize the adjective—immigrants is a great desideratum. The more white people of the right sort— preferably Scotch, of course, and from Aberdeenshire for choice! —in South Africa, the better for this country, otherwise there is a danger of its becoming a black man's country—gradually, I admit, but none the less inevitably." Last January Clark spent a holiday in Cape Town, where he called on WILLIAM SoUTER MACKIE* (1895-1901), Professor of the English Language in the University of Cape Town.
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Clark and Mackie were classfellows at the Grammar School. Clark says : " Mackie didn't know me, and I shouldn't have known him, for we had last seen each other in the year 1907 —20 years ago. We had a fine ' crack ' about old School days and saw quite a lot of each other during the fortnight I was in Cape Town. He is the only one of our University Class I have met in South Africa in all the years I have been here." Harry Winfield Cook* (1895-1904), who was formerly engineer on a tea estate in Assam, is now engaged in engineering in Durban, Natal. Robert Rannie Cook* (1899-1908) has for the last two years been manager of United Sua Betong Rubber Estates, Ltd., Port Dickson, F.M.S. He first went to the East in 1913. Samuel Graham Crowden* (1866-67), who has been a representative in the North of England, Ireland, and Scotland, for the past 40 years of Messrs. Hodgkinsons, Clarke & Ward, now amalgamated in the British Drug Houses, Ltd., London, retired from business owing to ill-health on 31st December, 1925. He resides at 12 Kilmaurs Road, Edinburgh. FIGHTING AN EPIDEMIC IN SUDAN.
Alexander Cruickshank* (1911-17), M.B., Ch.B., who contributes to this issue of the Magazine a short account of an elephant hunt with the Baggara Arabs of Southern Kordofan, is in the Sudan Medical Service at Khartoum. In a recent letter he says that during last winter they had a very severe epidemic of Relapsing Fever in the Western Sudan, causing thousands of deaths, and his particular function was to try to prevent its spread eastwards. " For this purpose a chain of quarantine and delousing stations was formed all along the boundary of the infected area and on the main travel routes. From the west through the Sudan is a favourite road for the large numbers of Moslem pilgrims from West Africa on their way to receive salvation at the sacred shrine of Mecca. The journey often takes them a life-time, or their children may complete what they began. A wonderful faith they must have to abandon home and country on such an undertaking. What concerns us, however, is that they are a most important factor in the spread of any infectious disease, and there is little doubt that they are largely responsible for this epidemic, which has come to us from Nigeria via French Equatorial Africa. The measures for treatment and check of spread have up to the present met with great success, and it is practically now stamped out." Ernest Denny Logie Danson* (1892-94), M.A., D.D., Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak, who is the Club Consul for Borneo, is at present in this country. His diocese comprises
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the territory of The British North Borneo Co., the realms of the Rajah of Sarawak, the Moslem state of Brunei, and the Island of Labuan, which is administered from Singapore. He has jungle schools and workers among the old head-hunting tribes of Dyaks in the interior, but the Chinese are the growing and flourishing population on the coast. Troubles in China are leading to a great influx of Chinese immigrants, who are seeking peaceful Borneo as a change from their own country. They form a most exemplary population. Douglas J. Davidson* (1891-1902) has taken over charge of the Culloden Estate, Neboda, of the Rosehaugh (Ceylon) Rubber Co., Ltd. He went out to Ceylon in 1906. Frank Bruce Farquharson Duguid* (1919-26) has recently left for Nyasaland in order to take up tobaccoplanting with his father on Ballater Estate, P.O. Chinteche. George Murray Farquharson Foggo* (1880- 86) in a recent note says that he has been greatly interested in the reproductions in the Magazine of class groups in the 'Eighties. " The mere fact of seeing the portraits of the boys, most of whom reached man's estate, takes one back to the time when one was among them, when we gorged ourselves with ' brandy snaps ' and such tuck, and played ' huntie oot the Shargie,' and for our sins got walloped by ' Greenie,' Nosey Morison, and A. V. Lothian, and made ashamed of ourselves by that gentleman and scholar, Rev. J. W. Legge. Lots of water has passed down the ' Bandie Burn ' since the writer marched up to School in his kilt in the very early 'Eighties. Do you remember the scare of the Tidal Wave ? It was worse than Boer bullets and German shells." Douglas William Edgar Gauld* (1914-20) went out to Nyasaland in November, 1925, and in the spring of the following year received an appointment on a new tobacco estate near Fort Jameson, Northern Rhodesia. An extract from a letter in which he gives an account of the process of tobacco-harvesting appears on another page of this issue of the Magazine. William Wares Georgeson* (1911-23), M.A., has been elected to a Scholarship for Classics at Pembroke College, Oxford. James Munro Gill* (1910-22), M.B., was in April appointed Resident Physician in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. John Gill* (1879-80), who was for many years branch manager in Pretoria for a firm of Johannesburg wholesale merchants, is now resident at Uvongo Beach, South Coast, Natal. Alan Grant* (1914-17), who served his apprenticeship as an engineer with Messrs. James Abernethy & Co., Ltd.,
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Aberdeen, received an appointment in September last with Messrs. Harrison & Crosfield as an assistant engineer on their Sumatra estates. He is at present at Simpang Ra'a, Pematang, Siantar. John Grant* (1906-12), M.C., M.A., C.A., of the firm of J. R. Flockhart & Grant, C.A., Aberdeen, has been appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to be a Public Auditor under the Industrial and Friendly Societies Acts. He has also been appointed Permanent Honorary Treasurer of the Students' Representative Council of the University of Aberdeen. Alexander Grub Gray* (1912-15), having passed the necessary examination last year, has been admitted an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute. Arthur Colson Hay* (1901-02), M.A., who was appointed English master in Keith Grammar School in 1911 and was promoted to be second master in 1924, was in November last appointed interim rector of the same school. Within the last few weeks he has been appointed rector of Aberlour Secondary School and will enter on duty there in October. William Hector* (1880-85), who has been for 30 years in medical practice at Tarland, Aberdeenshire, retired in April. The occasion was marked by a handsome presentation from the people of Cromar and the surrounding districts. The presentation was made by Lord Aberdeen. Stanley Hurry* (1916-21) has graduated B.Sc. in engineering with first class honours at Glasgow University. He served as an apprentice at the Inverurie Locomotive Works. Archibald Clive Irvine (1908-10), M.A., M.B., who has been for the last eight years a missionary of the Church of Scotland in Kenya, is at present home on furlough. Since 1921 Dr. Irvine and his wife have been working on the deeply wooded slopes east of Mount Kenya, where there live two tribes, the Wimbi and Chuka, numbering 25,000 people, the most degraded and backward of all the native peoples of Kenya. In an address which he recently gave to the Aberdeen Rotary Club Dr. Irvine said that the natives occupied small huts scarcely reaching to the shoulder, and lived in squalor and filth. Contrary to the popular impression that the life of the primitive was a healthy one, the native lived in a hopeless condition of disease and brutality. The women practically bore the brunt of the work, but despite that, the men had a remarkable capacity for getting down to work when tempted to do so. The young men were always the fighters of the tribe. In the old men were vested the customs and religious interests, and they maintained their prestige because of their ability to poison anybody who questioned their authority. The young men and women had to do as they were told.
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Charles Stewart Jackson (1909-11) was in May ordained and inducted to the U.F. Church of Old Deer and Fetterangus at Stuartfield U.F. Church. William Wilson Jameson* (1892-1902), M.A., M.D., M.R.C.P., London, is now medical officer of health and school medical officer for the Borough of Hornsey, London. Dudley Walter Kirk* (1914-19), M.B., is at present stationed at Admiralty House, Queen Street, Deal, Kent. Robert Daniel Lawrence* (1900- 09) , M.A., M.D., has recently been made a Member of the Royal College of Physicians, London, on account of his research work on Diabetis and his numerous publications on that branch of medicine. He has been Chemical Pathologist in King's College Hospital, London, since 1924. Loke Yaik Foo* (1907-14), as announced on another page, has recently married. According to the Malay Mail, " the ceremonies in connection with the marriage of Mr. Loke Yaik Foo, the well-known Selangor lawn tennis player and motorist, culminated in a dinner at Kuala Lumpur, at which a large gathering of friends of all communities were present. Dancing followed. The ceremonies began on Monday morning, and in the afternoon the bridegroom, accompanied by a few of his friends, motored to Ipoh, where other ceremonies were gone through. The newly wedded couple arrived in Kuala Lumpur yesterday afternoon, when the final rites, such as paying homage to departed ancestors and relatives, were performed." Ewen Alexander Macdonald* (1918-19), M.A., was in April unanimously elected minister of Rogart United Free Church. After graduating in Arts at Aberdeen University three years ago, he took a full course at the Aberdeen U.F. Church College, and was licensed at the end of last session. ANOTHER F.P. FOR THE SCHOOL STAFF.
Colin John Maclver (1902-03) was in May appointed to an Assistant Mathematical Mastership in the Grammar School. He graduated with first class honours in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Aberdeen University in 1907, and has been teaching since 1908. He was principal teacher of Mathematics in Nicolson Institute, Stornoway, from 1910 to 1919, and in the Academy, Dingwall, from April, 1921. From March, 1919, to April, 1921, he was Private Secretary to the Right Hon. Viscount Leverhulme. In addition to being a good mathematician, Mr. Maciver is a rugby football enthusiast, and on all grounds his appointment to the staff of the School will be most welcome.
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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine. MACKAY OF UGANDA.
The bones of the great African pioneer, Alexander Murdoch Mackay (1863-66), who died in 1890, are being removed in June of this year from their resting-place at Usambiro, at the south end of Lake Victoria Nyanza, to the cemetery under the shadow of the great Cathedral which has been erected on one of the hills of Kampala, capital of Uganda. This is being done as part of the jubilee celebrations to mark the completion of 50 years' Christian work in Uganda, now one of the most progressive and flourishing of our African dependencies. The jubilee is being made the occasion of many meetings and services, and also for a great pageant. One of the episodes takes place on the site of Mackay's house, two miles from Kampala, where three of his boy converts were burned by the cruel King Mwanga. Two of Mackay's fellow-workers are still living in active old age in London. Alexander Hendry Mackie* (1881-86), M.A., M.D., has for 16 years been Divisional Surgeon to the Lawley Street Railway Division of the St. John's Ambulance Brigade in Birmingham. He was elected Corps Surgeon for the Birmingham Corps in 1925 and held this position until March of this year, when he resigned owing to excess of work in his medical practice. On his resignation he was presented with a gold watch, and at the same time he was presented with the Long Service Gold Medal from the London, Midland & Scottish Railway for his work in the Lawley Street Division, to which he is still attached as the Divisional Surgeon. On 20th May, 1927, he was made an Officer of the Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem at St. John's Gate, London. Thomas Mackintosh* (1909-14), who was formerly Assistant Manager of the L.N.E.R. Hotel, Queen Street, Glasgow, was in January last transferred to the Royal Hotel, Grimsby, as Assistant Manager to the Hotels Superintendent of the Great Central Section of the L.N.E.R. Hotels. William Mackintosh* (1893-96) is manager of the New York Department of the Royal Insurance Co., Ltd. A new building at 150 William Street, New York, has just been completed for the purpose of housing the principal offices of the Company in the United States, and the chief offices of some of its affiliated Companies there. The new building covers an area of 2,354 square yards, and provides eight acres of floor space. It is regarded as a great contribution to American architecture. The style follows the design of the late English Renaissance, particularly the work of the Brothers Adam in their larger buildings in the late 18th century. As a modern New York building it complies with the exacting requirements of the Zoning Laws, with setbacks beginning at the tenth floor and occurring at five other levels.
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Charles Stewart McLeod* (1908-1920), M.A., who left the School as Dux and Gold Medallist of the Classical Side in 1920, has just been placed among the Wranglers in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge, being starred " with special credit," and awarded the Tyson Gold Medal for Astronomy. He is a Scholar of Emmanuel College, and was placed in Class I of the Mathematical Tripos, Part I, two years ago. He graduated in arts at Aberdeen University in 1924 with first class honours in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and was awarded the Simpson Mathematical Prize, the Greig Prize, and the David Rennet Gold Medal. In the following year he gained the Ferguson Scholarship in Mathematics open to the four Scottish Universities. He is a son of Dr. Charles McLeod, formerly of the School staff, and both father and son will be congratulated on the latter's latest achievement. William John Mearns* (1916-20) has received an appointment through Messrs. Thomson, Alston & Co., of London, on the New Seremban Estate, Sungei Gadut, Negri Sembilan, F.M.S. He served as an apprentice in the Exchange Street Branch, Aberdeen, of the North of Scotland Bank, and for a time acted as second teller in the West-End Branch of that bank. His brother, JAMES GODSMAN MEARNS* (1913-20), B.Sc. (Agr.), at present holds an appointment under the same firm in Selangor, F.M.S. James Stewart Macgregor Mitchell* (1911-15) is now engineer on the Nagaghoolie Tea Estate, Oaklands P.O., Assam. James P. Mowat* (1908-11), who was formerly on Chemor Estate, Perak, is now senior assistant manager to the Lenggeng Estate, Selangor, under COLIN HAY MILLER* (1900-04). Thomas Scott Muir* (1886-87), M.A., who is Geography Master in the Royal High School, Edinburgh, has written during the past few years the following school books published by Messrs. W. & R. Chambers :—" A Descriptive Regional Survey of Europe," " A Regional Survey of Europe," " The British Empire," and "Foreign Lands outside Europe." He is also the author of a number of other books and of articles on geographical and mountaineering subjects. William Murray* (1884-85 and 1889-91), M.B., son of Sir James Murray, formerly of Glenburnie Park, Aberdeen, is the proud father of David Murray, the nine-year-old author of " A Boy's Credo," to which Mr. E. V. Lucas recently devoted a column in the Sunday Times. William Agnew Duncan Neilson* (1917-24) is now a pupil at Bedford Modern School. Thomas Ogilvie* (1884-87), C.B., C.M.G., was in April
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gazetted Honorary Colonel of the 4th Battalion The Gordon Highlanders in succession to Lord Lovat. He is at present Chairman of the City of Aberdeen Territorial Association. William Peters* (1900-O6), who has for a number of years been head of the British Commercial Mission to Russia, has recently returned from Moscow as the result of the break in diplomatic relations between this country and Russia. Frederick Strathern Philip* (1914-24) has received an appointment on Sungei Choh Rubber Estates near Kuala Lumpur, F.M.S. After leaving the School he studied agriculture at Aberdeen University and obtained the Diploma of Agriculture. Robert Richards* (1899-1904), M.A., M.D., was appointed Lecturer in Forensic Medicine in the University of Aberdeen for the session 1926-27. Michael Balfour Hutchison Ritchie* (1897-98), D.S.O., M.B., Major, R.A.M.C., is the author of "Aesculapius Armaque," recently published by Messrs. Bale, Sons, and Danielsson. The volume comprises a series of articles contributed to the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps. David Graeme Robertson* (1900-09), who has been in business for a number of years at Kuala Lumpur, F.M.S., where he acted as F.P. Club Consul, is now settled in Aberdeen as a director of Messrs. Wm. McKinnon & Co., Ltd., engineers. Another of the directors of that firm is SYDNEY FREDERICK MCKINNON* (1905-15). Simon Douglas Ross* (1914-20) has permanently left Uganda and is meantime on a fruit farm at Battle, Sussex. George Stanley Russell* (1894-1901), M.A., minister of Clapham Congregational Church, Grafton Square, London, has been appointed Chairman of the London Congregational Union for the year 1928. Alexander Sharp* (1922-24) received the Diploma of Agriculture at Aberdeen University in March, and has gone out to Sumatra to an appointment on a rubber plantation with Amalgamated Rubber & General Estates, Ltd. Julien Nicol Smith* (1909-16) is now engaged in engineering with the De Forest Radio Co-operation, Ltd., makers of wireless apparatus, Toronto, Canada. Leonard John Smith* (1890-1902), who is engaged in commercial art in London, has recently exhibited a number of delicate studies at the International Exhibition of Modern Etchings and Engravings in Florence. His work has met with high commendation. Donald Sinclair Stewart* (1906-18), M.A., M.B., is at
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present on the staff of Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, London. Arthur Landsborough Thomson* (1899-1908), M.A., D.Sc., of the Medical Research Council, has written the book on " Birds " in Messrs. Williams & Norgate's Home University Library. In this he presents an essay upon the entire bird family, dealing generally with such broad aspects as evolution, form of locomotion, plumage and flight, social life and territory, and the inter-relations of one bird tribe with another. Dr. Thomson has already more than one book on birds to his credit. Ralph A. G. Thomson* (1917-25) received early this year an appointment with Messrs. Murrell, Thomson & Co., wool, hide and skin exporters, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, of which firm his brother GRAEME L. THomsoN* (1907-17) is a partner. In a recent letter he states that he is now very happily settled. " Climatic conditions are, to my idea, ideal. I have often been told that the climate of South Africa is the best in the world and here, in Port Elizabeth, it is really delightful. I would strongly recommend any F.P. who may be contemplating a visit to this country to try Port Elizabeth first, and he will spend the remainder of his time here ! " He adds that both his brother and he will be only too pleased to do anything for any F.P. who may be in Port Elizabeth and who may care to call upon them. He believes they are the only F.P.s in that town. William George Thow* (1911-22), M.B., has recently been granted the diploma of L.D.S. of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. Kenneth A. M. Tomory* (1899-1908), M.B., Major, R.A.M.C., is at present stationed at the British Military Hospital, Landour, Mussoorie, U.P., India. Douglas Fraser Turner* (1920-22) is now in the service of Messrs. Soper & Haine, dental surgeons, Aberdeen. Edward James Wood* (1908-21), M.A., Waddington Scholar, Cambridge, has been awarded the Croom Robertson Fellowship of Aberdeen University, tenable for three years from 1st May, 1927. This Fellowship is of the value of £200 a year, and is the most valuable one connected with the University of Aberdeen. It was founded by CHARLES ROBERTSON, who was Dux of the Grammar School in 1849, in memory of his brother GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON (1853-57), who was Professor of Mental Philosophy and Logic in the University College, London, from 1866 to 1892, and became editor of " Mind " in 1876. Other F.P.s who have held the Fellowship since it was founded in 1897 are ANDREW R. WILLIAMSON (1898-1902), JAMES OLIVER THOMSON (1899-1900), ANDREW
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MILNE* (1903-09), and ARCHIBALD FORBES HYSLOP* (18971910). Edward Sycamore Wyness (1913-17) recently passed as a first officer in the Mercantile Marine. He is a son of Captain T. A. Wyness, Harbour Master, Aberdeen. Aberdeen University Degrees and Prizes. At the Spring Graduation of Aberdeen University degrees were conferred on the following F.P.s :— Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)— James Lawson Mowat* (1915-16), M.A. Thesis— " The Industrial Revolution as reflected in the German Novel, 1848-1895." Master of Arts (M.A.)— William Wares Georgeson* (1911-23), with First Class Honours in Classics and Distinction in Comparative Philology. James Edward Bothwell (1915-23). Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.)— Alfred John Meldrum Edwards* (1908-21), M.A. Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.)— Christopher Charles Barnett* (1915-21), M.A. Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.)— Alexander Gray* (1910-22), M.A. Bachelor of Medicine (M.B.) and Bachelor of Surgery (Ch.B.)— George James Allan* ( 1907-20), M.A. John Barclay (1918-20). Ronald Grant Dingwall* (1912-21). George Angus Paterson Fraser* (1911-22). James Munro Christie Gill* (1910-22). Neil George Marr* (1915-21). Cyril George Walker* (1914-22). In the Faculty of Arts William Wares Georgeson* (1911-23) shared with another the Simpson Greek Prize and the Robbie Gold Medal, and was awarded the Liddel Prize for Greek Verse Composition. In the Faculty of Medicine Ian Alfred Anderson* (19121924) was awarded the Fife Jamieson Memorial Gold Medal in Anatomy and the Channock Gold Medal in Anatomy ; and Gordon Moncrieff Dean* (1909-18), B.A. (Cantab.), was awarded the Dr. James Anderson Gold Medal and Prize in Clinical Medicine. George Norman Clark* (1916-22) was proxime accessit for the Shepherd Memorial Gold Medal for The Principles and Practice of Surgery."
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OBITUARY. THE TRAGEDY OF A GALLANT OFFICER.
John Hector Innes Brown (1884-90), D.S.O., Lieut.Colonel, of the 73rd Canadian Infantry Regiment —a son of the late Sheriff Brown, Aberdeen—died under tragic circumstances in New York on 2nd April, aged 54 years. In a letter to the New York Times Sir H. G. Armstrong, the British Consul General at New York, wrote :— " Lieut.-Colonel Brown was a gallant officer who served his country
faithfully and loyally. During the Great War he was Second-in-Command of the 73rd Battalion, Canadian Forces, and his overseas service earned for him the award of the Distinguished Service Order for conspicuous Colonel Brown was, I bravery, as well as mention in despatches. understand, not only an excellent officer, but possessed tact and judgment and admirable executive ability. Unfortunately, however, he suffered from the unrest that followed the War, and this prevented his securing a position suitable to his abilities and standards, and finally forced him, through his age and physical condition, to secure employment as a watchman. " Unluckily neither this Consulate General nor the various Empire organizations in this city were aware of his condition, and apparently, with that sensitiveness characteristic of brave men, he hid his sufferings from those who would willingly have helped him, and passed away without the consolation or aid of friends whom he might have called upon."
At the time of Colonel Brown's death the newspapers both in this country and in the United States gave accounts of his career, but these were meagre and generally inaccurate. The following account of his life has been compiled from information which he himself supplied to the Editor of the Magazine at the end of 1920. In a letter written at that time from Halifax, Nova Scotia, he said :— " I trust the information is what you require. I had the pleasure of seeing my brother Arthur [Richardson Brown (1884-90), advocate, Edinburgh] in London during the War—and of course ran across many Aberdonians in France and elsewhere. I often think of my School days and realize the value of the sound training imparted at the Grammar School. I am now married, and have a little boy nearly four years of age. Like many other Scotsmen I have determined to send him back for his education—for the more I travel, the more I realize the inestimable value of our Scottish education."
After studying for a time at Aberdeen University, he went to Canada in 1898, and joined the Royal North-West Mounted Police as a Private in December, 1899. In the South African War he served with the Canadian Cavalry for one year, and after having been granted an Imperial Commission, he was Adjutant of the 10th Regiment, Imperial Yeomanry, until the end of the War, rising to the rank of Captain and Brevet Major and being twice mentioned in despatches. Thereafter for six years he was on the South-West Coast of Africa (Angola, Portuguese Africa) engaged in exploration work. On one occasion he took charge of an expedition across Africa to the
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Katanga copper mines. In 1908 he returned to Canada and engaged in business in the province of Quebec until 1914. In July, 1915, he became a Lieutenant in the 73rd Battalion The Royal Highlanders of Canada, and was promoted to be Major before leaving Canada with that Battalion. In France he saw service with the 12th Brigade, 4th Canadian Division, on the Ypres Salient, the Somme, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele. Thereafter he returned to England,. taking charge of the reorganization of Canadian Engineers and attending the Senior Officers School at Aldershot. He was three times mentioned in despatches, and was awarded the D.S.O. in March, 1917. The conspicuous act of gallantry for which he received this was described in the London Gazette of 11th May, 1917, as follows :During a raid on the enemy's trenches, he took charge of the assembly of the left assaulting wave and of three large offensive patrols. He carried out these duties with marked skill, and throughout set a magnificent example to his men. Later he organized the dispositions of the companies in the front line, and personally supervised the collection of a number of the wounded.
He left France with the rank of Major, and returning to Canada in January, 1919, was promoted to be LieutenantColonel and appointed Provost-Marshal for Nova Scotia. He took charge of the repatriation of Chinese coolies across Canada in 1919-20, and was demobilized on 6th August, 1920. Thereafter he organized the Canada Maritime Investigation Agency, Ltd., Halifax, Nova Scotia, of which he became president and managing director. Little is known about his career after this, but his decline in fortune is believed to have been due to the failure of this business venture. He arrived in New York about three years ago, and presenting himself to the British Consulate, showed credentials which secured for him the post of night clerk in Long Island College Hospital. This position he held for eighteen months. The superintendent of the Hospital said at the time of his death that Brown had left " to better himself!' His last job was as watchman in Hammacher, Schlemmer & Co.'s building, 145 East Fiftyseventh Street, New York. The British Great War Veterans' Association in New York arranged for his funeral, which took place with full military honours in Cypress Hill Cemetery, Brooklyn. A Field Officer's firing party was provided by the General Officer commanding the New York district, who was personally represented at the funeral. The Ex-Service Men of Colonel Brown's old battalion, as well as representatives of the British Legion and of several other Canadian regiments, acted as pall-bearers. The coffin was draped with the Union Jack, and the feather bonnet of the Black Watch was placed upon it.
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Cecil Winterton Anderson* (1911-12) died in London recently, aged 30 years. After leaving the School he served with the North of Scotland Bank till the outbreak of the War in 1914, when he was mobilized with the 4th Battalion Gordon Highlanders (T.F.). He received a commission in the Gordon Highlanders (T.F.) in April, 1915, and was seconded to the Machine Gun Corps in July, 1916, serving with it in France from October, 1916, to April, 1917. In January of the following year he received a regular commission in the 9th Bhopal Infantry, Indian Army, and served in India and Mesopotamia till invalided home in March, 1919. In November of the same year he was invalided out of the Army with the rank of Lieutenant. In 1921 he entered the service of the Royal Bank of Canada at Havana, Cuba, but owing to ill-health had to return to this country. About a year and a half ago he was appointed cashier to the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit and Offices Company, London. Haddon Anderson Bower* (1877-84) died at Aberdeen on 10th June, aged 59 years. He was a son of the late Mr. James Haddon Bower of Pitmurchie, Torphins. After leaving the School he served as a pupil for four years with Messrs. Matthews & Mackenzie, architects, Aberdeen, and then spent a year in London. For four years he was colonial representative of Messrs. Bower & Florence, granite merchants, Aberdeen, and then became a partner, and later sole partner, of this firm. He had been in indifferent health for some time. His three brothers, GEORGE HADDON BOWER (1877-87), advocate in Aberdeen, HERBERT HADDON BOWER (1881-92), C.A., Aberdeen, and JAMES ANDERSON BOWER (1882-95), tea planter, Assam, are all members of the F.P. Club. Harry Ross Brodie* (1906-12) died at Kyambu, Kenya Colony, on 10th June, aged 31 years. On leaving the School he entered the service of the Northern Assurance Co., Ltd., Aberdeen, and on the outbreak of the War in 1914 was mobilized as a Private in the 4th Battalion Gordon Highlanders (T.F.). In 1916 he received a commission in the Bedfordshire Regiment, and served in France with the 4th Battalion to the end of 1916, when he was invalided home, and again in the spring of 1917, when he was wounded. After demobilization in March, 1919, he became a member of the British East Africa Disabled Officers' Colony, Ltd., Kericho, British East Africa. From 1922 he was engaged in coffee planting, etc., in different parts of Kenya Colony, and quite recently he entered into a partnership at the farm of Kamiti, P.O. Kyambu. Charles Broomhead* (1868-72), M.D., died at Great Crosby, Liverpool, on 7th September, 1926, aged 71 years. He graduated in medicine at Aberdeen University in 1876,
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and was in medical practice at Oldham from 1877 until 1915, when he retired. Henry Havelock Brown* (1871-74), M.B., C.M., died at Leytonstone, London, on 8th May, aged 69 years. He was the youngest son of the late John Brown, shipowner, Peterhead, and graduated in medicine at Aberdeen University in 1886. He had been for many years in medical practice at Leytonstone. Andrew Borland Dickie (1863-67) died at 57 Thomson Street, Aberdeen, on 27th May, aged 73 years. He served as an apprentice with Messrs. James and George Collie, advocates, Aberdeen, and was for many years cashier and accountant with that firm. He was a son of the late Rev. Andrew Dickie, minister of St. Paul's U.P. (later U.F.) Church, Aberdeen. He had four brothers at the School—WILLIAM STEVENSON DICKIE (1863-69), who was until a few years ago minister of the U.F. Church, Irvine ; JAMES STEEL DICKIE (1869-73), M.D., who retired from practice at Bournemouth a a few years ago ; and two now deceased—MATTHEW DICKIE (1859-64), minister of the U.P. Church, Alva, Stirlingshire ; and ROBERT S. DICKIE (1875-78), who died while a student at the University. Lestock Reid Forbes (1883-84), eldest son of the late Lestock Reid Forbes, Bengal Commission, died at Mentone, France, on 5th May, aged 60 years. He latterly resided at St. Aubin, Jersey. William Barclay Kennaway* (1902-14), eldest son of Mr. William Kennaway, died at Aberdeen on 15th May, aged 30 years. On leaving the School in 1914 he became an apprentice with Messrs. John Cook & Son, shipowners, Aberdeen. In January, 1917, he was called up for War service and served with the Army Service Corps in France and Flanders, being attached to the 20th Divisional Artillery. After being demobilized in February, 1919, he returned to complete his apprenticeship with Messrs. John Cook & Son, and in the following year went to Fraserburgh as manager to Messrs. Moir, Wilson & Co., Ltd. In 1922 he went to Fleetwood, where he successfully established himself in business as a wholesale fish curer. He married in November, 1925, and leaves a widow but no family. Daniel Laird (1881-87) died at 47 Carden Place, Aberdeen, on 12th June, aged 55 years. He was the eldest son of the late Mr. Daniel Laird, teller, Aberdeen Savings Bank, and served as an apprentice in the Town and County Bank, Aberdeen. Latterly he held an appointment in the Head Office of the North of Scotland Bank, Aberdeen. John Low Reid (1879-84) died at Cromleybank, Ellon, on 8th April, aged 60 years. He was son of Mr. Nathaniel
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Reid of Danestone, who founded a shorthorn herd there as far back as 1850, and he was brought up in the atmosphere of farming and the breeding of pure stock. His father, when he left Danestone, purchased part of the estate of Ellon, which included the farms of Cromleybank and Hillhead. John L. Reid entered the former, while his father went to the latter. It is about 37 years ago since the son founded his herd of shorthorns, the initial purchases having been made from the Kinellar collection belonging to Mr. Sylvester Campbell. He developed a strong liking for public work, and served for many years on the Ellon School Board and also on the Ellon Parish Council, of both of which he was chairman for several terms. He was a keen and highly efficient Volunteer, and rose to the rank of Lieut.-Colonel, commanding the 5th Battalion Gordon Highlanders (T.F.). He retired in 1911, and rejoining in September, 1914, successively commanded the 2/5th Battalion Gordon Highlanders and the 2nd Volunteer Battalion Gordon Highlanders. William Laurence Simpson (1846-52) died at Dunedin, New Zealand, in his 90th year. He was a son of the late Rev. Robert Simpson, D.D., minister of the Free Church, Kintore. On leaving the School he studied for a time at Marischal College, and entered the office of Messrs. Stronach and Duguid, advocates, Aberdeen, with whom he completed his indenture as a law apprentice, and then was in a law office in Edinburgh for two years. In 1862 he left for New Zealand, and served for a few years as Resident Magistrate on various goldfields. Eventually he was appointed Resident Magistrate of Dunedin, which office he held until 1881, when he became manager of the Trustees' Executors and Agency Company of New Zealand, Ltd., from which he retired some years ago. Alexander Martin Smart (1888- 89), sixth son of the late Peter S. Smart, manufacturer, Aberdeen, died at Gwelo, Southern Rhodesia, on 13th March, aged 56 years. Arthur Stephen (1855-60), Colonel (retired), Indian Medical Service, died at The Croft, Parkhill, Ealing, London, on 23rd April, in his 84th year. He graduated in arts at Aberdeen University in 1864, and in medicine in 1867. In the latter year he joined the Indian Medical Service at Bengal, and retired with the rank of Colonel in 1899. Harold Turner Finlayson (1895-1907), who died with tragic suddenness in March of last year, is commemorated by a stained-glass window of three lights which has recently been placed in the Chapel of Holmwood School, Formby, Lancashire. The central light contains the figure of St. Christopher carrying the Infant Christ on his shoulder over the river.
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Marriages. Cantlay (1903-10).--At the Palace Hotel, Aberdeen, on 15th June, ALEXANDER VERNON WHITE CANTLAY,* 108 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen, to Mary Adiel Fowler, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Fowler, Ellon. Grafton (1909-15).-At St. Cuthbert's Church, Darlington, on 17th March, EDWARD GEORGE GRAFTON,* eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Grafton, Forest Road, Aberdeen, to Margery, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, Darlington. Jackson (1909-11).—At Carden Place United Free Church, Aberdeen; on the 14th June, the Rev. CHARLES STEWART JACKSON, Old Deer United Free Church, to Katherine (Toxie), daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Napier Reynard, 31 Mile-End Avenue, Aberdeen. Lillie (1913-18).—At Carr's Lane Church, Birmingham, on 1st June, JAMES PICKFORD LILLIE,* M.B., Ch.B., elder son of Mr. and Mrs. James Lillie, 44 Ashley Gardens, Aberdeen, to Frances, elder daughter of Dr. A. H. Mackie* and Mrs. Mackie, Morningside, Washwood Heath Road, Birmingham. Loke (1905-14).—At Ipoh, Perak, F.M.S., on 10th May, LOKE YAIK Foo,* eldest son of the late Towkay Loke Chow Kit, to Khong San Lum, daughter of Khong Cheong Tak of Ipoh. Mackenzie (1911-15).—At All Souls', Langham Place, London, on 1st June, ROBERT CHARLES MACKENZIE,* elder son of Mr. and Mrs. R. J. MacKenzie, Mount Stuart, 31 Castlebar Road, Ealing (late of Aberdeen), and of R. J. MacKenzie & Sons, Ltd., Hayes, Middlesex, to Josephine finch, grand-daughter of the late Joseph Randall of Shooters Hill, Kent. Marshall (1905-O7).—At Elgin, on 16th April, DOUGLAS MARSHALL, bank agent, Portknockie, to Hannah Macrae, only daughter of John Macrae and the late Mrs. Macrae, Forres. Nicol (1908-21).—At Aberdeen, on 13th May, FRANCIS KELLY NICOL,* son of James B. Nicol,* 74 Forest Road, to Dorothy, youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. Lawie, 8a Mount Street, Aberdeen. Walker (1902-12).-In St. Mary's Chapel, East Parish Church of St. Nicholas, Aberdeen, on 17th June, CHARLES WILLIAM WALKER,* M.C., M.D., Hereford, to Isobel Helen Walker, M.A., only daughter of G. W. S. Walker,* advocate, and of Mrs. Walker, 127 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen.
An F.P. Company of the Gordons. During the last few weeks a determined effort has been made to revive the Grammar School Company of the 4th Battalion Gordon Highlanders (T.A.). Prior to the War there was a strong and efficient School Company, consisting of young former pupils and senior boys of the School. This Company was broken up during the War, most of the members of it having received commissions. Several meetings have already been held with a view to resuscitating the Company, and as a result quite a number of F.P.s have been enrolled and sworn in. A similar effort is being made to revive the Gordon's Colleges Company, and in the meantime the intention is to raise a platoon from each School, both to be under the command of Captain A. W. George, M.G., the Aberdeen Education Authority s Superintendent of Physical Instruction.
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'Tis Fifty Years Ago. Second Series.
III—Elocution : Mr. Alfred Macleod. By CANON HARPER, CULROSS. Elocution was looked upon as an extra : it was a luxury for those who chose to take it up, but quite outside the range of our ordinary course of instruction. A cautious Aberdonian would naturally ask more suo " Fat's the ees o't ? " For to read with expression and effect was supposed to come to us with our mother-wit. And besides, was it not taught, indirectly at least, in practically all our classes ? In our Latin class, Still was always hammering at us to read our Latin prose and verse in a way that showed that we knew the meaning of it. Nor was he backward in correcting our pronunciation of English and our grammar. In the Rector's class the same custom obtained. We had to read both Latin and Greek, carrying the sense along with us. Professor Murison laboured to teach us how to speak and write correctly what was then known as " The Queen's English." He took a great deal of trouble in training us to read with accuracy selected passages from the best English literature. He had constantly to correct us both in pronunciation and in idiom. I have often wondered how he came to know what was the right thing himself, and where he got the wonderful store of information on English grammar and literature which he possessed, even as a young man. Speaking for myself, I can say without hesitation that I have never had to unlearn any of the things he taught us in those far-off days. But when all is said and done, the art of reading with expression was not a direct outcome, but rather a by-product of our studies in the department of Classics, or even to some extent in our English class. However, in the early Seventies of last century it began to dawn in the minds of some of our Civic Fathers and Educational Authorities that it would be all to the good, and a step in the right direction, if provision were made in the schools of Aberdeen for the formal teaching of Elocution as a subject by itself. Accordingly in 1874 Mr. Alfred Macleod was unanimously chosen by the School Board of Aberdeen to give instruction in Elocution in all their schools. So he came to us at the Grammar School on certain days of the week, and from him we got a lesson sandwiched in an interval between two others, his being an optional subject, the others being compulsory. From some documents now lying before me I infer that at that time he was well under thirty years of age. To us, however, from his hirsute appearance he looked much older than that. He had a plentiful
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crop of reddish hair, and a strong thick beard of the same. He was of medium height and of slim proportions. His eyesight was defective, and he always wore a pair of old-fashioned spectacles of strong power. He had an imposing appearance, and was always able without any difficulty to maintain perfect order in his class. He had been a pupil of Dr. David Masson, the famous Professor of English Literature in the University of Edinburgh, and after that he dedicated himself to the Theory and Practice of Elocution and the art of giving public readings and recitations. By the time he came to us he had gained considerable experience in both of these. From the first day that he met us he had his subject fully in hand. He had already published a First Text-Book of Elocution, in which are fully explained the principles that ruled his teaching. What, I wonder, was the real object of our parents and guardians who sent us boys to the Elocution class ? Was it in the hope that we might turn out eloquent Preachers ? Or Teachers with a fluent tongue ? Or brilliant Pleaders in the Courts of Law ? Or was it with the more humble desire that we might be able at least to read ordinary English distinctly and correctly, so that those who heard us could clearly understand what we said ? In any case it would " take a lot of doing," for we were sorry material to work with. We were all natives of Aberdeen and a few miles round about. We spoke our native Doric without the least feeling of shame. And why not ? It is indeed a powerful speech, copious, nervous, flexible, and expressive, in few respects inferior to " English," and in many respects superior, yet differing so much in idiom and enunciation and even in vocabulary as to be not " English." Sometimes a Northerner's tongue betrays him into the hands of the Southern Philistine. About a quarter of a century ago, a descriptive writer in a London evening paper neatly took off a Northern M.P., a man of great natural abilities but somewhat deficient in formal education. He wrote—" Then rose Mr. -- to ' explen the skop o' the Beel.' " So we went our own way. We stressed the wrong syllable, we unduly emphasized our consonants, and we rolled our " r's." Our vowel sounds, too, were all wrong. Our " a's " were all broad, our " o's " were all round. We had no ear for finer distinctions. For these things, perhaps, some little defence might be made. But worse remains behind. For there were some of us who spoke a wonderful dialect, very fine and clipped, that was separate and distinct from every other language in the world. It is not necessary to describe it further, for there is reason to think that it is not yet extinct it can still be heard in Aberdeen. It is occasionally referred
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to in these pages under the designation of " Albyn Place English." Our old friend William Keith Leask held it in special contempt. It would surely be unreasonable to expect that all these faults and defects could be entirely cured in the course of a few brief lessons. It would be too much to hope that we could entirely lose our accent, and recite our pieces so perfectly I that no one could recognize that we were Aberdonians. was present once when a parent was questioning one of our boys about his lessons in the Elocution class. The old man was sceptical, not to say contemptuous. " Lat's hear fat ye learn," he said. So the boy recited a short poem with appropriate expression and gesture. His father listened in silence, taking it all in, and his somewhat dry verdict was this : " Ach, ay ! it's jist common readin'." But some undoubted results were obtained. Let me refer to the testimonial in favour of Macleod that was given by Professor Kennedy. He says :—" For many years Mr. Macleod has been the representative of the art of public speaking in the North-East of Scotland. Into every branch of his work, whether among students at the University or the pupils in the Board Schools, he has thrown himself with boundless energy, and with an enthusiasm that knows no discouragement. He has given much painstaking study to the right methods of voice production, and the most effective means of remedying defects of local pronunciation." Dr. Kennedy adds: ' Not only is Mr. Macleod himself an Elocutionist of the first rank, but he has not unfrequently succeeded, to my personal knowledge, in making excellent speakers and readers of the most unpromising material." Professor Gilroy testifies to the same effect. Writing from the University of Aberdeen he says :—" Nowhere is there more unpromising material brought to a teacher of Elocution than here, and often at a time when bad habits of speech seem hopeless of removal : but you have always dealt with your students with that delicate tact and encouragement that gave them hope in themselves, and pleasure in endeavouring to undo the mischief of past years of indifference and neglect." Macleod was an interesting teacher and we all liked him. We had to read in the class, or recite from memory, passages from his Text-Book. These were extracts from well-known prose writers and poets, and comprised a great variety of subject and style, from grave to gay and from tragic to comic. They afforded ample scope for differences of expression in reading and recitation. Sometimes, though rarely, he would read to us himself ; more frequently he would listen as we read aloud before the class, and then he would make any necessary corrections, and give us hints for improvement. He usually
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conveyed his advice to us with a gentle touch of humour. Two examples recur to my mind. One of us was reading the well-known poem on the Inchcape Bell, in which the line occurs: " Like a buoy on the ocean it floated and swung."
Our classfellow read it thus : " Like a boy on the ocean." Macleod's comment was, " Poor wretch ! " On another occasion a member of the class was reading a humorous piece in verse about a crow, which ended with the crow saying "Caw." This boy pronounced it " Kaa" ; upon which Macleod remarked, " Upon my word, I do believe the crows in this district pronounce it ' Kaa.' " I have already said that Elocution was an extra subject, and not compulsory. Probably not more than a third of our number joined the class, not more than twenty altogether. We found that in the Elocution Class quite a new type of boy came to the front—not necessarily a champion in Classics, nor even one of dominating personality. Some of us got keenly interested in Elocution, and in reading and reciting in class. In a very short time we had visions of reciting not only in the class, but even in public. Macleod did not discourage us ; in fact he went so far as to suggest that we might form a Shakespearean Society. Then the proposal was mooted of rendering one of Shakespeare's comedies in the Hall of the School. The heather was now on fire. I am afraid I was one of the ringleaders. The chief of my fellow-conspirators were Dr. William Murray Leslie (as he afterwards became), Dr. Charley Urquhart, Dr. David Reid MacKinnon, Sir James MacDonald, John Hutcheon, John Kelly, and Peter Mackay. The Thespian aspirants comprised members of other classes as well as our own. We set to work and studied " The Two Gentlemen of Verona " and a short modern play entitled " The Original." We somehow got appropriate dresses and we cadged the town for suitable scenery. When at last the night of the performance came, we did our best. I still possess a cutting of the notice given us on the following morning in the Free Press. It was a kindly and appreciative paragraph, but the critic " damned us with faint praise," and said that such enterprises must terribly cut up the time that we ought to be spending on more serious subjects. And it may well be suspected that our parents and guardians said the same thing. Now I quite appreciate the force of the argument, and to a certain extent I own we must plead guilty. Nevertheless I cannot admit that our time was anything like altogether wasted. Those of us who performed got a great deal of innocent amusement, and in all probability our audiences enjoyed the performances too. And I take leave to doubt if the time we spent in memorizing our parts and in rehearsals really interfered very much with our progress in Classics or
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Mathematics. These exercises certainly strengthened our memories, and to some extent advanced our studies in English. It should, however, be explained, in fairness to Macleod, that he left us severely to ourselves after the Dramatic Club was initiated. He had nothing whatever to do with the selection of plays, the assigning of parts, or our training for public performance. All these details were entirely in our own hands, and the only instruction we got was from our mutual criticism of each other. That was usually very frank and outspoken. Pat Rattray, though he never performed in public, was a valuable critic. At one rehearsal he said to me, " Harper, the book says you sigh, but yon was a groan ! " However, though the system, or want of system, worked out not unsatisfactorily on the whole, there can be no doubt that what we needed was the guidance of some capable person, some benevolent tyrant, to take us in hand, to be our tutor and stage manager, and to see to it that we kept our dramatic enthusiasm within due bounds. We sometimes read with the liveliest interest in the pages of this Magazine reports and reviews of School concerts and theatrical performances. There can be no doubt that they must be vastly superior to ours of fifty years ago, for we were only pioneers in the Prehistoric Ages. It would, indeed, be of general interest, especially to us old stagers, if the Editor (and I know he is not blate at the job) could induce some one to describe fully how these performances are engineered and put upon the stage in the present day. Our Shakespearean Society gave two, or it may be three, public performances, the last being just before the Christmas holidays in 1876. Then our Club fell to pieces, and the members were able to give their undivided attention to their regular course of instruction. I have sat at the feet of other Instructors in Elocution. I call to mind in particular a very efficient one we had at the Divinity Hall in Edinburgh. But none of them taught anything that had not already been learned from Macleod. His course included instruction (1) on breathing, voice production, gesture, articulation, and pronunciation ; (2) on modulation, inflection and emphasis ; and (3) on voice culture, common defects and mannerisms, and the delivery of poetry and prose. Macleod was a genuinely earnest, religious man, and took a large share in Christian work both within and beyond his own church. In this connexion it is rather remarkable to note that he was teaching at the same time in the University, in the Free Church College, and in Blairs College. It says much for him that he was trusted equally by Protestant and Catholic. The last time I saw him was at the Quatercentenary Celebration of the University of Aberdeen in 1906. We met at the Strathcona Banquet. He came over to where my
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College class was gathered : we were and are known as " The Noble 82 of '82." I had some little conversation with my old teacher over old days. He appeared then to be as fresh and vigorous as ever. He continued with unabated energy the duties of his profession for another round dozen of years. Eventually he retired in 1919, after having contributed a continuous service in Aberdeen of no less than 45 years. He died in June, 1923. I gladly homologate the words of the obituary notice that appeared at the time in the Aberdeen newspapers :—" Mr. Macleod was an admirable master of his subject: a man of marked literary taste and artistic feeling. The intimation of his death will awaken in a wide circle of old students and Aberdeen schoolboys vivid memories of a pleasant and attractive personality and of a modest and diligent teacher."
Blaming the School—A Reminiscence. It was in 1870. I was a farm servant to George Marr, of Cairnbroggie, parish of Tarves, father of William Marr, Uppermill, shorthorn breeders both. This George Marr, poor man, buried three children in one day, stricken with diphtheria. One son, John, survived, and the parents naturally cherished him. Although the father was unwilling, the mother was determined that John would go to the Grammar School in Aberdeen, and to the Grammar School John was sent. He came home on holiday at Christmas, 1870, during the FrancoPrussian war. One day we were threshing with the water mill, and we found that the long covered tail-race was choked and the water was gathering about the wheel. Operations had to cease. The water gradually subsided, but what was to be done ? The tail-race was two feet square, and we farm servants were too bulky to go through and clear away the rubbish. I, myself, weighed about 16 stones at the time. John from the Grammar School appeared, and without consulting his parents, or hesitating one moment, crawled down the tail-race. A considerable time elapsed, John appeared at neither end. His father came on the scene and became extremely anxious and excited, scolding us roundly for allowing the boy to go down the tail-race. Then the mother appeared, and the angry father turned his wrath upon her, " Didn't I nae tell ye, 'oman ; here's wir bairn lost ; that's yer Aiberdeen Grammar Skweel and yer gyminastics." Young John, lying in the tail-race, was enjoying the fun, keeping quiet, although quite within call. He soon emerged, like the proverbial drowned rat, dragging behind him a paling post and a wisp of straw, the obstruction in the tail-race. A grandson of my employer left the Grammar School in 1915 ; became a ship's mate, and is now a second year medical at Aberdeen University.
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An Elephant Hunt in the Sudan. For the disappointed hero, slighted in love, to dash off to " Darkest Africa to engage in the hazardous pursuit of big game cuts no ice nowadays. The favourite superlative can be applied to very few parts of Africa now, and big game hunting with the advent of powerful and accurate magazine rifles with telescopic sights can hardly be called dangerous, while the tinned delicacies and bottled nectars of our enterprising merchants and all the " aids " of modern travel render the sport, if not luxurious, at least comfortable ; however, there still remains an area where the elephant and the giraffe and other big game are hunted in a primitive, dangerous, exciting, non-luxurious, but effective manner by the nomad Arabs of Southern Kordofan and Darfur in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Sheets of water were pouring down from a leaden sky as the party set off for the first hunt of the season. The rough, broken soil was for the most part under two or three inches of water, but the small, stocky, country-bred ponies ploughed through it gamely with the quick walk peculiar to their kind. In the van was Hamad Ahmed, the great hunter, the hero of a hundred encounters with the great tuskers, who proudly showed an ugly scar across his chest, the result of too close contact with an animated and angry ivory tooth. In his right hand he held his hunting spear, a formidable weapon with a broad blade ten inches long, sharp as a razor and protected by a leather sheath, while the shaft was of light bamboo cane ten feet long. Along with this he carried a short pointed spear for close-quarter work, and in its sheath, fixed round the upper left arm, his hunting knife. His hawk-like eyes for ever scanned the horizon. He could spot any moving thing minutes before any of his companions, and could tell what it was, and of what sex, long before the short-sighted white man could see any movement at all. Following behind Hamad, all on their stocky ponies, came half a dozen Arabs, all similarly armed, and the privileged onlooker. To the high pommels of each wooden saddle was attached their complete camping outfit—a leather skin full of grain, another containing a small parcel of tea and sugar and some strips of dried meat, and the inevitable teapot dangled behind. In the distance, travelling slowly, came the women folk, riding the baggage bulls, which were eventually to carry bac'c the spoils. Mosquitoes rose in a continual buzz from each disturbed bit of vegetation, large, silent seroot flies settled on exposed parts, and all one knew of their presence was a painful sting and a trickle of blood from the site. Flies, beetles, midges, anything with wings and a power to bite or sting did their
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best to turn the hunters from their purpose, but these men, with an indifference born of long experience, wound their " immas" round their necks and faces, pulled their long sleeves over their hands, and jogged on. Darkness set in while we were still far from the hunting grounds. A piece of high land was sought ; saddles taken off ; the horses hobbled and left to graze ; fires lit ; tea brewed with lots of sugar in it ; a meal made of this and some grain soaked in water, with perhaps a small strip of dried meat as a savoury ; grass, perhaps a bit damp, cut and spread out for a bed, with a saddle for a pillow ; the fires replenished ; and so into a dreamless slumber. Hyenas may prowl around, or a lion may roar in the distance, or the stealthy leopard may scent meat, but these hunters are light sleepers, and the near-by horses are the best of sentinels. Every now and then a sleeper stirs, gets up, throws a few fresh logs on the fire, sees the horses are all right, and sinks into slumber again. I have often envied them this power of instantaneous wakefulness and immediate slumber. Long before dawn we are off again, and pass into country covered with dense, thorny bush, with here and there an immense gamase or ardaib tree, and red, honey-combed ant-hills, looking like fairy castles in the distance. Suddenly Hamad stops and points to a thick clump of bush about half a mile away, and whispers " Feel " (Elephant). Through glasses a herd of about twelve can be seen quietly graiing, quite unconscious of the presence of their enemies. A big trunk stretches up, seizes the luscious green top of a tree, and the tree is no more. All is now eagerness and excitement. Hamad leads the way back to a small mound. Here the Arabs dismount, remove all superfluous gear and clothes, and leave them in charge of the boy of the party. Saddle girths are tightened up, and the covers removed from the spear heads. One thing which is not removed, however, is the written charms done up in tiny leather cases. These are hung round their necks and their arms and even round their horses' necks. They are charms written by the " fikis," or " holy men," especially to give luck in killing the elephant, and many an unlucky hunter has spent his all in trying to propitiate one of these holy men whom he may have offended, for without their blessing, and still more without their visible protection in the shape of a written charm, they cannot hope for a kill. The experienced Hamad now leads the way in a wide circle ; not a breath of air stirs to show which way is " up wind " ; the mosquitoes still buzz but are forgotten ; and the horses tread softly, knowing full well what is afoot and what is expected of them. After what seems an interminable time
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of dodging out and in, taking advantage of every clump of cover, the herd is spotted about three hundred yards away, and they spot us. Immediate commotion. Trumpeting, bellowing, stamping, up go their trunks, their mighty ears spread out, and they sniff the air angrily—will they charge ? A charge at that moment would have finished the hunt for the day, and possibly some of the horses as well, for we were on bad, broken, and bushy ground, impossible for the horses to gallop on. No, they turn, and go off at a slow trot, crashing down trees—nothing impedes their mighty progress, while the earth beneath us trembles with the tread of these forest monsters. With great cunning Hamad follows on all the time, trying to spot the best bull, the biggest tusker in the herd. At last the chance comes • the country opens out, the going is hard and firm, obstructing trees are few, and before one realizes what has happened, the Arabs have given a wild yell and charge at breakneck speed for the herd, and suddenly one sees that a bull elephant has been separated from the rest, who are blindly and with terrific noise dashing off in the distance. The angry bull, for a second at a loss, stands with its ears at right angles to its great body, its tusks are gleaming in the hazy sunlight, its small wicked eyes blinking—now it has got the wind of its detested enemy—man ; up goes its trunk, and with an awe-inspiring bellow it charges at a tremendous pace the small group of Arabs waiting on horseback. How can anything withstand this furious onslaught of an angry five-ton monster ? But its moment's hesitation has given an Arab the chance to nip round behind on his quick, handy pony, and, like a rocket from the blue, horse and man and spear hurl themselves at the elephant's hindquarters ; the spearhead flashes, and driven with judgment and unerring aim, gets home on the hamstring tendons of the left hind leg. The elephant feels the sudden stab of pain, lets forth a shuddering roar, turns on its track with amazing agility for its size, and rushes blindly at its new enemy, who by then is a few hundred yards away. No sooner has the elephant turned than another horsemanspear avalanche is hurled at its hindquarters—this time it is our hero Hamad. The second spear-thrust is supposed to be the most dangerous, as by then the beast is thoroughly enraged. He, however, sweeps on, and with a hardly perceptible motion of the spear leaves a gaping wound in the right hind leg. " Too high," murmur the Arabs, " the tendon is uncut." This is no time for fault-finding, however, for the elephant has again turned, and with continuous bellows of rage and pain makes in the direction of the last thrust. It is seen that he is now a bit lame, and a third Arab dashes out and makes a
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thrust, but within a yard of the beast his horse puts its foot in one of the huge holes made by the elephant's foot. The watcher's heart stops, as like a flash the elephant turns, and before the poor struggling pony can rise, a heavy foot like a sledgehammer has crushed in its skull ; but it is man's blood that the elephant wants, and he knows the difference, and makes for the Arab who has been thrown some feet away from the horse, and the great trunk is just about to encircle him and dash him against the nearest tree or crush him under foot, but the delay with the horse has prevented his revenge, for from each side a whirlwind Arab charges broadside and Hamad makes up for his first shot by plunging his spear deep into the heart. The Arab on the other side has got him through the chest and sealed his death-warrant, while the thrown rider has struggled to his feet and runs for shelter with one arm dangling by his side. The great beast with groans and bellows sinks on its knees, struggles to rise again to get at his hated enemy, and finally, with a prolonged sigh, gives up the struggle and lies down to die. The Arabs give their shrill hunting-cry (el la Tarzan of the Apes when he made his kill), which the women folk hear afar off, and dismount. One goes with his knife and cuts the expiring elephant's throat, for no Moslem will eat any meat which has not been properly bled to death. This proves to be quite a good specimen, with tusks five feet four inches long when hewn out. When sold these will pay all the hunters' taxes for the year, pay the " fiki's " exorbitant fee for a successful kill, buy new clothes for the women folk, and a string of amber beads for the favourite wife, and still leave a little for a " blow out." Only one horse killed and an Arab with a dislocated shoulder, which was quickly put in again—quite cheap for such a good bull. Darkness again gathers. The juiciest elephant steak sizzles over the hot ashes. A large thorn fence surrounds the carcase. Log fires burn all round to keep off such scum as hyenas and jackals. The hunters, tired but happy, lie around chanting their hunting songs between mouthfuls of the tasty fresh flesh, with a few grains of salt to season it and some strong, sweet tea to wash it down. What more could man desire ? A. C.
Mr. ALFRED MACLEOD.
The Donors of the Shanghai Clock.
Back Rose•.-S. D. Begg, W. E. Smith. D. M. Whamond, R. W. Robertson, W. R. Myers, C. B. Ogilvie, A. M. Halley, H. H. Gow. Front Row.—W. N. Buyers, H. B. Scott, E. G. Tait, G. A. Buyers, Shao Ying Yeh, T. A. T. Begg. Absent.—E. J. Harper, J. Y Miller, J. R. Nisbet.
' ,41101."
School Cricket 1st XI.—Season 1927.
Back Row.—Mr. D. McGregor (Games Mastery, G. Cruickshank, J. W. B. Cruickshank, G. W. Dodd-, I. I . Booth, I. F. Mortimer, J. M. Robertson, A. B. Donald, A. 3. Lockhart, R. J. Thom Second
Begg, M. K. Duguid.
School Prefects —June, 1927.
Back Row—G. J. Summers. Second Row—P. A. T. Bate. W. A. B. Hamilton.
J. L. Ducat A. M. Scrimpour (Senior Peeled).
J. M. Gossip.
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" If Ye be True Men. 10 An Empire Day Address to the School. By Professor ALEXANDER GRAY.
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On Tuesday, 24th May, Empire Day was observed in Aberdeen, and at the Grammar School the older pupils assembled in the Hall and were addressed by Professor Alexander Gray, of the Chair of Political Economy in the University of Aberdeen. In view of its striking message, which will certainly appeal to a much wider circle than was privileged to listen to it, the address is printed here in full. I have been trapped into coming here to speak to you on Empire Day, and I think that it would be rather a fitting revenge on my trapper if, stubbornly and perversely, I refused to say anything about Empire Day at all. There is, you will remember, scriptural precedent for a prophet, forcibly brought upon the stage, insisting on saying something quite different from what was expected of him. And indeed I am resolved to disappoint you, if in a speech on Empire Day you look for a history of the Empire, or of the institution of Empire Day, or if you expect an exact statement of the undeveloped acreage of the British Empire, of the imports and exports from the Fiji Islands, or an estimate of the number of rabbits in Australia. Indeed, even if it be a mean thing to do, I would rather speak to you about yourselves—although I expect that you get enough of that at home—and trust to the Empire and Empire Day coming along somehow before my twenty minutes are up. Now every discourse, even the dullest, must have a text, and for my text this morning I have dredged certain words from the Book of Genesis, which you can find for yourselves, although I am sure you won't ; and my text is in these words : " If ye be true men." I am quite sure that you are, and that you are going to be not only true men but also stout fellows ; but nevertheless I should like to speak about some of the things to which you ought to be true, that is to say some of the loyalties which should guide you through life. Now I think that you will agree, even in your comparative inexperience, that life is a mere senseless drifting about on an uncharted sea unless you have something to hang on to. Some people call these things principles, some speak of ideals. To-day I would like an even bigger word, and I would therefore call them loyalties; because I have known some very unprincipled men, and some men with scarcely a bowing acquaintance with an ideal, who have nevertheless had their loyalties, often inborn and instinctive. And our life is made up of these loyalties, and if ever you write a successful drama—as I hope
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some of you may, for it is a paying job—you will in all probability make it centre round a conflict of loyalties. You might take the awful tragedy of the vegetarian whose wife was secretly addicted to oysters. And of course there are all kinds of loyalties ; there is loyalty to your home, to your church, loyalty to your town, which makes you hold (and rightly) that there never was such a town as Aberdeen; loyalty to your School, which makes you believe that there never will be such a school as the Grammar School— though, of course, you are not called upon to burn down Buckie, or punch the heads of the boys from less favoured seminaries just to prove your faith. LOYALTY TO THE PAST. Well, over and above, and perhaps transcending all these loyalties, there is one which needs to be emphasized to-day, and that is our loyalty to our common past. We are set in this world in nations, and we are all of us the products of forces, of conflicts and sacrifices, stretching away back to the beginning of history. Do not ask me what a nation is. Wiser men than any here—or perhaps I should say men with a greater reputation for wisdom (which is not by any means the same thing)—have puzzled their heads over this question of nationality. And still wiser (and more disgruntled people) have told us that there is no such thing ; that it is all a myth, craftily contrived by cunning rulers to increase their power. The common link is not necessarily in race, for no race is pure —we have short heads and long heads (chiefly long heads in Aberdeen) ; nor is it in language, for looking abroad we see, or have seen, Germans teaching Poles and Alsatians (the men, not the dogs) to speak German, but they do not thereby make them descendants of a common stock. I recognize the force of all this, but it leaves me unmoved. It is in any case a childish idea of nationality to consider that it implies descent from a common ancestor, who probably called in a wolf to nurse his babies. And the anti-nationalistic argument leaves me unmoved, because I feel otherwise ; because, whether I like it or not, the whole of Scottish history has gone to the making of me. And I do not mind how high you put this argument. If you will bear with me, and if it does not strike you as too much of a parturiunt montes, I would say that it was for me that Wallace resisted and was tortured ; it was for me that Bruce endured ; it was for me that Queen Mary was beautiful ; that I might enjoy liberty my fathers filled the 17th century with war and with slaughter, and died lonely deaths on the hill side; that I might speak to you to-day Bishop Elphinstone founded King's College, further back Provost Davidson died at the red Harlaw, and shadowy City Fathers founded the Grammar School.
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Now all this—and what I have said is not unduly fanciful —imposes on you a great loyalty to the past, for " if ye be true men " you will remember these things, and will so order your lives as to be worthy of the past history of your country and to be not unworthy of all the efforts and sacrifices in virtue of which you live ; and though we had been the least of all the nations, this loyalty to the past would have been imposed upon us. But I need hardly reassure you that we are by no means the least of all the nations ; for in 1603, as you remember, a Scottish King became King of England, and from that date, and more emphatically from 1707, the union of the Parliaments, Scotland has to be viewed as an integral part of something larger, with a more spacious part to play in the world's history. Here, but for careful management on my part, we might impinge on a lecture on history ; but be undismayed. I passed my prelims. thirty years ago, in 1897, and you know all about it better than I do. But as you know, the foundations of our first colonial Empire were laid before we (as represented by James VI) came along. It is not, I think, a matter about which we need be unduly puffed up, for as a very high authority has expressed it, we acquired an Empire in a fit of absent-mindedness, and indeed, until comparatively recently, this attitude of absent-mindedness has remained. To begin with, I think it was sheer love of adventure that led to expansion, and nowhere will you find more stirring tales than in the accounts of these earliest buccaneers or pirates, or whatever you care to call those who ventured out to see what kind of a world this was. I will give you but one phrase taken at random, words spoken by a certain Captain James to the remnant of his men suffering the extremities of an Arctic winter after shipwreck in Hudson Bay : " My masters and faithful companions," he said, " be not dismayed for any of these disasters, but let us put our whole trust in God. His will be done. If it be our fortune to end our days here, we are as near heaven as in England ; and we are much bound to God Almighty for giving us so large a time for repentance. He doth not in the meantime deny that we may use all honest means to save and prolong our natural lives." Then, referring to others who had escaped death, he said : " If it be objected that they have happened in better climates both for temperateness of the air and for pacific and open seas, and provided withal of abundance of fresh victuals, yet there is nothing too hard for courageous minds which hitherto you have shewn, and I doubt not will still do to the uttermost of your power." " There is nothing too hard for courageous minds "—that is the first and earliest motive. Then there was trade, itself an adventure ; later, brave and devout men seeking freedom of conscience. Even if it be true that our first Empire has passed under another
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flag, it is to be remembered that the United States derive from us their heritage of law, language, and literature, and that the roots of the Western Republic are deep in our soil. But even so, before the end of the 18th century the foundations of what might be called our second Empire were laid, even though throughout a great part of the 19th century it was looked at askance and regarded as an incubus. As late as 1869-70 it is surprising to find that New Zealand was protesting to the Home Government against the " policy of abandonment," and criticizing the action of the Colonial Minister as " not only unfriendly but scarcely reconcilable with any other motive than a desire to drive New Zealand from the Empire." Throughout the middle of last century, indeed, the attitude of the leaders of this country is reflected in the statement of one Minister who spoke of how " to accomplish what we are, I suppose, all looking to, the eventual parting company on good terms." A change came towards the end of last century—so recently as that—but I think it is as well to emphasize how very recently we have become really conscious of the existence of an Empire. Bat in any case, whether or not we knew what we were doing, the Empire is there, covering, on paper—so we are assured— a quarter of the surface of the globe ; and likewise about one in four of the population of the world is a British subject, entitled, presumably, to say Civis Britannicus sum. The ' Empire is there, and for good or for evil it is established as one of the dominant factors in world affairs ; and in the general culture and civilization of the world, the AngloSaxon tradition in literature, outlook, and ideals promises to play an increasing part. LOYALTY TO THE FUTURE.
I have said that the British Empire has, for good or for evil, come to exercise a dominant influence in the world's affairs. This may appear to you an unduly guarded phrase, above all on Empire Day, which has come to be consecrated to our imperial aspirations. But I purposely refrain from expressing too definite a view on such matters, which after all are hidden in the future, knowing that it depends on you and others like you—here, and in Canada, and in Australia—whether or not this British Empire which has come about in so haphazard a manner is yet to play the part which we would affectionately assign to it. For " if ye be true men," the Empire may be in the future, as I believe it has been in the past, just about the greatest agency for good in the world's affairs ; but if not, it is about as certain as,anything can be that it will break up, and its dismembered fragments will remain—if indeed they remain—pitiful monuments of a great past, protesting
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witnesses to opportunities that have been missed. And here is the second great loyalty which I would ask you to remember to-day. I spoke to you at the outset about the loyalty you owe to the past, " to look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged "—and a very good granite it is too. I would like to remind you of the second great loyalty, the loyalty to the future. This great Empire is in your hands, a tremendous potential force for good, and you owe a loyalty to all who come after—not merely within but without the Empire—to see that in your time the Empire is on the side of the angels, and that you hand on the inheritance in full honours and in full efficiency. And that, I think, disposes of certain cruder enthusiasms which tend to dishonour our conception of Empire Day, and which indeed conflict with that loyalty to the future which I have spoken about. And firstly, the Empire is not merely a matter of colouring the map red. To be candid, the boast that a quarter of the globe is within the Empire rather chills me, and I am by no means anxious for any more red paint at present. Size in itself is never commendable ; all large things (unless they are something more than merely large) are in danger of being vulgar—like the fattest woman in the world, whom you may see in all the side-shows for an ill-spent twopence. She may be an excellent women in other respects, but her bulk alone—divorced from her other virtues—inspires no reverence. Nor do I think that on such a day as this should I commend the Empire to you on what are, I admit, subtler and more plausible grounds. We in the home country here, suffering from an overdose of industrialism, would certainly be in a poor way if we did not contrive somehow to get the rest of the world to feed us. And sometimes, and no doubt truly enough, it is argued that our existence depends on the Empire, inasmuch as without the infinite resources of the overseas Dominions, Colonies, and Protectorates, we should not have the wherewithal to feed our crowded millions. It is perhaps true, but in the light of cold eternal justice I cannot get away from the humiliating truth that there is no necessity for any of us to continue alive, if on our going we are likely to be replaced by a better man, and the same devastating principle applies to Nations and Empires. We have no divine prerogative to continue as a Nation or as an Empire beyond the stage when we continue to give a good account of ourselves, and I always feel that there is something unworthy in a vision of Empire which seems to imply that one of the functions of the Empire is to provide the means of maintaining the Mother Country. For that, as it seems to me, begs the further question whether the Mother Country is worth maintaining, and will continue indefinitely to be so.
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WHAT WILL BE OUR LEGACY? Otherwise expressed, if we are worthily to celebrate Empire Day, we must rid our minds of all thoughts of ourselves. No individual can live for himself ; a country perhaps may ; I am sure that no Empire can. As individuals hereafter in life, despite much current theory to the contrary, you will learn that it is not what you get out of other people that matters, but what you can do for them. The really successful man is the man who does most for others ; the unsuccessful man is the man who in one way or another sponges on others, even though his sponging leads him to the seats of the mighty. There is a profound truth in the saying that it is more blessed to give than to receive—a favourite saying, by the way, of an old Master of mine when he resorted to the strap. Now, if you apply this principle to the case of Empires, you will see on what test we have to determine whether the British Empire has been a success in the past, whether it is worth while continuing, and how you in your time have to act to make it a success in the future. We speak of the legacy of Greece and Rome. Perhaps I should not at this early stage speak of our legacy ; for a legacy implies a previous decease, and I trust that like Charles II we may yet be an unconscionable time in dying. But the point of view is a just one. And if the word " legacy " sticks in your throat, you may remember that legacies are sometimes avoided by what lawyers call gifts inter vivos—chiefly to escape death duties, which in the case of the legacies of Greece and Rome have not yet perhaps been paid. What in the event of our decease will be our legacy? What, being still alive, can we do in the way of gifts inter vivos ? To understand this, it is perhaps necessary to consider what sort of thing this Empire is. And assuredly, when you look at it, it is something unique in the world's history. No Empire has ever been so loosely, so illogically constructed. The French with their clear minds, the Germans with their methodical thoroughness, would never have tolerated so great a chaos. Adam Smith, long ago speaking of the early American colonies, complained that we had not an Empire, but a project of Empire. It is still in large measure true. The British Empire contains an endless variety of types of government. If at the one end you take such vast dominions as Canada or Australia, free from complications of mixed populations and with full responsible self-government, then you are really dealing with entirely independent states. Then there is the great experiment of India, where we are in transition to an uncertain goal. Then you have all the various types of government in the Crown Colonies and Protectorates, with assemblies partly elective and partly nominated. As an
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example at the far extreme, the Island of Ascension was, I believe, until recently deemed to be a ship and was run as such by the Admiralty. So far as concerns the larger units, there is here no definition of relationship. What, you may ask, holds them together ?—Nothing ; if you like, sentiment ; if you prefer it, common loyalties. And so, if you look at the essence of the thing, as found in the self-governing dominions, you find that the Empire is becoming more and more a wholly informal alliance of free nations, and happily they are growing to regard themselves as such. They are becoming accustomed to think of themselves as the Canadian Nation, or the Australian Nation, each of them working out their own destiny, and each of them experimenting—and indeed making farreaching experiments—in the field of social legislation. But there is no constitution of the British Empire ; the whole thing is flexible and undefined, and there is nothing beyond periodic meetings of Premiers to discuss matters of common interest. The whole rests on faith. This in itself is a strange thing in the world's history, and I think it gives the answer to the question I asked about the legacy which we may ultimately leave. In the end, perhaps, each nation gives to the world a certain ideal type of manhood ; to discuss the Anglo-Saxon ideal, and the characteristics of the typical Anglo-Saxon might explain much in our development, but it would take us far afield, and it might not answer the question we are considering. And the answer to that is clear and simple ; it is seen in our history, in the history of other•nations striving in this to follow our example ; it is seen in that strangely nebulous Empire where everything is left undefined, because to define it would be to spoil it. Our special gift to the world has been the system of Parliamentary Government and all that it involves. In other words, we have solved, as no people before us ever had solved, the problem of reconciling authority and liberty. If you go back to the 18th century and read people like Montesquieu, you may at first be surprised to note the admiration with which they regarded the British Constitution. But it is not really astonishing ; even then, with all its manifold defects, the British Constitution contrived somehow to give tb our citizens a greater measure of liberty than was enjoyed in other countries. And that, I should say, is primarily what the British Empire has done. Liberty, like all other fine words, has had many crimes committed in its name. We have talked less about it than most, yet somehow we have achieved it ; and to-day, in fact, there is greater individual liberty in the British Empire than anywhere else. That is the outward final result ; but certain contributory qualities should be noted. The Anglo-Saxon, more than most,
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is blessed with a short memory. I do not think that he has ever nourished grievances. It is astonishing to-day how little of the bitterness of the War is left, and it was so after 1815. One of our own Aberdeenshire poets has asked us :— " What signifies 't for folks to chide For what was done before them ? "
That is the Anglo-Saxon spirit. We have always been willing to let bygones be bygones, even on the morrow of bitterness. One of the most extraordinary things in history was the grant of self-government to the former South African Governments so soon after the South African War, and the consequence of this spirit is seen in the Dutch in South Africa and the French in Canada living undisturbed within the Empire. Akin to this is the fact that we have never been the victims of any undue worship of uniformity. We have in general no plans and no theories, an attitude which has its own weaknesses but also brings its strength. We have, therefore, never thought it necessary to systematize our work, or to bring our Empire within the framework of a preconceived theory. And this, I need hardly tell you, means divergence ; it means a greater freedom. OUR DUTY IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE. That then, as I view it, is what will probably be found to be our legacy ; that is our gift to the world. The British Empire stands for Liberty, Order, Justice, and Toleration. Nor must you tell me that the lessons of Parliamentary Government have been learned by the world ; that there is scarcely a Principality in the world which has failed to draw its inspiration from us or has neglected to establish Cabinet Government and Universal Franchise. It is idle to pretend that the outlook in the world is anything if it is not gloomy. The worst may be past, but for the world as a whole the prospect has seldom been more uncertain. You have been sent into the world in difficult times to play a difficult part. I do not wish to be alarmist, but I am not sure that it is realized how insecure our whole civilization is. Back in the spacious Victorian diys everything looked so permanent ; it seemed as if everything would go on for ever, the world getting richer and fatter and more prosperous. But in these last years we have realized that even that which seems most stable may give way. Of Russia and of China who may speak ? At the time of the Spartacus rising in Berlin it seemed as if the whole of Germany would fall under Bolshevist theory. Hungary for a few days hovered on the brink. We came very near to having a great part of Europe governed by a subversive doctrine. It is significant that at the present moment two of the Southern Countries of Europe are to all intents and
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purposes governed by a military dictatorship, and you who know your Aristotle know to what a " tyranny " in the Greek sense leads. It is, indeed, when you think of it, but a small fragment of the civilized world where there is assured liberty and orderly government, and can we be sure that the forces of disorder are less threatening than they were? And this, I think, is the great function of the British Empire in the immediate future. It is not too much to hope for it, that it may be the greatest bulwark against such a collapse of our civilization as has at times leered at us in the last few years. And, as it is your privilege to be citizens of this great Empire, so it is your duty, " if ye be true men," mindful of your loyalty to the future, to be ready when need be to go to the ends of the earth to maintain that Pax Britannica, and by maintaining it, to secure for the world the maintenance of Law, of Justice, of Liberty, and of Civilization itself. Your fellows in the past have not failed ; nor will you. There are many here who will yet play a part—and a distinguished part—in far and remote places. The pages of your School Magazine, the names on the walls of your School are eloquent testimony to the fact that the Empire has a place of honour for the Boys of the Grammar School. I know that when you have travelled across the world you will be homesick, remembering, among other things, the old School and the Cricket Field, and the glory of those autumnal sunsets that make Union Street shine like a street in the New Jerusalem. All these will come back, for you will never be so much a Scot as when you are on the prairies of Canada, or the great waste places of Africa or Australia. I do not doubt that you will then be mindful of your loyalty to the past, and I am sure also that you will remember your loyalty to the future. Other loyalties, as we saw, may conflict, but not these. If you do your best to discharge the debt you owe to Scotland, to Aberdeen, and to the Grammar School, you will also be doing your utmost for the glory of the Empire and the advantage of the World.
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Some Perversions and a Diversion. To one who has been long in city pent as a wage-slave in an education factory, 'tis very sweet to escape from the world of books, especially the prison-yard of elementary text-books, and steer the good barque Ego in a tramp voyage on the tide of human movement. Lord Grey puts books first as the intellectual solace and recreation of civilized man, and the world of external nature second. Stevenson reverses the order, judging books to be a mighty poor substitute for life, and on the whole I increasingly share this preference. But text-books, as every schoolboy knows, are neither a solace nor a recreation. They belong to the category of books which are no books— biblia a-biblia, as Lamb called them—things in books' clothing, in which he included Court calendars, scientific treatises, and the works of Hume and Gibbon, but excusably enough forgot to include text-books, in his day but a trifling freshet, -and not the vast Mississippean deluge of print which, by the merciful brevity of human life and the insistence of other interests, one is providentially precluded from reading. Fain would I have this epitaph inscribed on my tombstone to challenge the commiseration of posterity— Here lie W H 's banes ! 0 trouble not his vext spook ! But wish instead, Peace to his manes, He never wrote a text-book.
But lest my opening sentence be misunderstood, let me make two points clear. " Why be a wage-slave ? " is usually the preludium to advertisements of commercial and technical training establishments which desire to drag the slave out of the mire of wages, give him a Pisgah-vision of the promised land of fat salaries and high profits, and point the way. As an Aberdonian I find it cheaper to hug my chains and console myself with a famous passage of Carlyle which begins, " Two men I honour and no third. . . ." And secondly, the factory spirit, by which I mean the undue stressing of competition and standardisation of product—of Fordism in education— has not yet invaded the School. There is some liberty for the expression of individuality, with, I am sure, a balance of advantage over the methods of mass production. More than one well-known writer has spoken of the horrors of modern education. And there are horrors ! The only factory note about the place, admittedly indispensable, is Kennedy's diabolical ramification of bells, which ten times daily sounds alternately in every nook and cranny, " Cease fire ! " or " All hands to the pumps ! " The fatal bellman touches the button, and hundreds at his bidding speed and post o'er stair and corridor without rest for the
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next dose of medicine. Generally his yoke is easy and his burthen light, but on occasion the wage-slave, Magister, unduly harassed by wageless slaves, Discipuli, will regard it as Mr. Mantalini did Newman Nogg's bell—a cracked tin kettle, every demd tinkle of which was enough to send a strong man into blue convulsions. But I had almost forgotten the old bell which tinkles in the tower o' mornings, and calls the faithful to prayer with its gentle admonitory note. Soon, we hear, it is to be accompanied by the shining face of the Shanghai Clock, affording a double reminder to those who creep unwillingly to School. I like this mediaeval note, this suggestion of cloistered seclusion. There are schools which respond to the shriek of a whistle. It is a barbarous practice, the prerogative of milkmen and football referees, park rangers, and policemen. No fitting invitation to the halls of learning ! But there is one bell which all acclaim, the final tocsin of the day. My heart leaps up when I behold the vision splendid on the faces of my co-mates and brothers in slavery. I think it is not very generally recognized that the day of a boy in a secondary school is pretty strenuous, though his protective armour is as effective as would be that of an armadillo against an old cow, and it would be the merest hypocritical pretence to mourn that a day so soon has glided by e'en like the passage of an angel's tear. Which gives me an opportunity to interpolate some doggerel in the Poe-esque vein on THE LAST BELL OF THE DAY. Hear the clatter of the bells, Kennedy's bells ! * What a tale of blest relief their palpitation tells ! In the ear of studious youth, How they blare out the glad truth— Time for cricket, time for tea, Time from swotting to be free, Not a care k Good old Jannie, cock-a-doodle 1 Birse the buttonie, let us yodel As we rush, the whole caboodle, Free as air. Where the trouts are fat as butter, and the motor-bikies sputter, And the hens flee with a clutter Long and loud. Let us go where we'll be seen, Up the Gallowgate, down the Green (haud opittor), Or in Union Street, I ween, In the crowd. Far away from Skene Street West let us flee and be at rest From the whirring and the birring of the bells, Till to-morrow's sun uprises, If it does, and us surprises, As we rub our winking eyeses —Glorious spells— • Kennedy, alas, was born a frisky dactyl.
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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine. Let all lessons be forgotten, And the rotten, rotten, rotten Day that lies before us, shotten With the punctuation frantic of the bells, Of the bells bells bells bells Bells bells bells, With the jingling and the tingling of the bells.
Now then, my beamish boys ! mark the feet and accents on these spavined verses : pick out the chromatic overtones and chuck the hendecasyllabics into the w.p.b. and pray that the ghost of Poe and the maledictions of the poetically hypersensitive do not pursue me in the peace of the summer vacation. Though it is not germane to the present matter, I prefer being saddled with the sin of irrelevance rather than to be guilty of the enormity of committing a really important piece of news to the obscurity of a footnote. The Chief Rabbi's pet " blackie " has forsaken the shade of the old apple tree and the roses round the door, and gone into residence among the rafters of the New Gym., heedless of the clamour of voice and saw and hammer, The Rabbi blames the severity of the weather for this desertion, but secretly he is peeved that she should prefer the dull society of carpenters and builders to his own anecdotes, recitations, and poetic instances. I adumbrate three theories to account for her ingratitude: (1) He is smoking a new and powerful brand of Empire tobacco —the Rabbi is as patriotic as a Provost ; (2) the words he used about the filthiness of that pretty ringtime, the Scotch springtime, were too fresh for the ear of a lady ; (3) he started quoting Keats to her : the Khayyamic philosophy she could understand with its central tenet of carpe vermem, but when it came to reciting
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Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird !
it was really a bit thick for the mother of a family only too cognizant of cats and the other facts of life. But as a compensation, Blackie paterfamilias sings a vespertine song of the problematical joys of fatherhood, and the Rabbi apostrophizes him from below in T. E. Brown's delicious linesO blackbird what a boy you are I How you do go it ! Blowing your bugle to that one sweet star— How you do blow it ! And does she hear you, blackbird boy, so far ? Or is it wasted breath ? " Good Lord ! she is so bright To-night " 1 The blackbird saith.
And here endeth the nightly duet of the gardener and the merle. So far this is the merest cackle. Let us now come to the 'osses, even if they are only 'acks. It is a favourite diversion
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of mine I wanted to talk about. There are times when I see no charm in the face of solitude, when I prefer the pictorial presentation of the great open spaces, when the wind on the heath, brother, is a little chilly, and I am utterly unresponsive to the appeal at
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" of antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven."
Neither literature not Nature delights me then, but only man. I turn to the animated life of the harbour, sauntering round the quay-side with a damn-braces-bless-relaxes feeling which cannot be indulged in the atmosphere of social constraint. You all do know this harbour. It is not so large as the Bight of Benin, if a trifle larger than the Duthie Park yachting pond, the happy mean, let us say, between the saucer of Macduff and the lordly dish of Sydney Harbour. But size is no matter —a conspectus is easier in the smaller place, and the world of beauty and endeavour is there as in the larger. Sights and smells, and sounds and sensations is my programme. It is a little difficult to see the harbour in full blast, because when it is working I also am engaged in that Arcady the classroom, and Sunday is a dies non, because then it is the comatose rival of the cemeteries in popularity. True, I might go before breakfast, but nothing will convince me of the seductiveness of the ante-prandial world or make me thrill to the cold glories of the dawn without my morning bap. But I go when I can, a planless idler, like a dog on his matutinal round. There is a queue of men walking the plank at an acute angle, deftly twisting 140-1b. sacks of coal into a ship's bunkers with the ease begotten of practice and the magic economy of style. Just as attractive in its way as seeing Hobbs in a harpy hour slamming the bowler's best stuff past a despairing coverpoint. It may be the more fragrant process of relieving a Bolshie of her cargo of esparto grass or the unloading of sweet, resinous timber from Norway. Or baskets of slithery roe coming out of the hold, desperately difficult to get into a basket, and only too easy to get out. Whatever the operation, there is a magnetism about hard and dexterous manual labour. Sweet it is to see man sweating all day in the eye of Phoebus to earn the wage that enables him to sleep all night in Elysium. Nobody would dream of gazing at a clerk addressing envelopes or a leader-writer labouring at his nightly effusion of political sapience. But a navvy opening drains, a plasterer slapping it up against the wall, the sweatbeaded brow and laboured breath of a plumber—these things lure us with the pleasant feeling that the real work of the world is being done, let whoever will, perform its airs and graces. Zeus haec nobis otia fecit.
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The purlieus of the harbour express the character that comes of leisurely development. I like the casual, irregular accretions of the years better than the featureless amenities of a garden city—to look at The vista up Mearns Street, for example, is rather fine, with the brick gable of a house in Virginia Street facing harbourwards, backed by the slanting green terracing of the Castlehill and the really beautiful line of the Georgian barracks, with the Royal Arms flashing in the sun and the Union Jack on occasion fluttering in the blue sky. There is a fine alcoholicky gloom about Virginia Street—a flavour of fifteen men and the dead man's chest, Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum ! Life-size casks, scarred and battered with service, crowd the doorway and windows of a brewery, bung-full. And Clarence Street always reminds me of that Duke who was drowned in a butt of Malmsey, one of the rare oases in the arid field of juvenile history. I have never ceased to wonder whether a little drink ever did him any harm before his final submersion, or whether he was put in head first and gravity made the feat impossible. Such a punishment to fit the crime might be commended to the United States for chronic bootleggers. And out of a sinister doorway in Water Lane one might see the figure of Daniel Quilp lurching, happy to have behaved to Mrs. Quilp in a way they have in Dockland. How sweet the name of Sugarhouse Lane sounds! How sonorous Weigh-house Square ! But they have all a sunless, vaulted, decaying aroma about them. Excellent for the imagination and the bottles, but bad for the bones ! The rank and file of shipping in the port are mostly floating receptacles, commercial hulks tramping the seas on the flat business of coastal routine, " how-backit " and dingy, with their engines huddled astern, and a crazy-looking balance that betokens the maximum of cargo space and the minimum of everything else. But there are often interesting casuals in this farthest north of the more considerable Scottish ports. There is a Yankee gun-boat, natty and slick, carrying the maximum of spit-and-polish gadgets—for what would a poor sailor John do in peace-time without such occupation ? But I can never think that the Americans, or any other people, have ever succeeded in accommodating themselves to the genius of the sea as our own country, where the sea is a familiar spirit which thrusts into the land, so that we have more miles of coast to our hinterland than anybody else. They have a derivative look— externals they copy, but the je-ne-sail-quoi eludes them. Next her, neglected, lies poor tubby Jane Banks of Fowey, a charwoman of the seas with a cargo of lime, and a the-sameyesterday-to-day-and-forever look about her. And while crowds throng her neighbour, none is so poor as do her reverence. Not far off is the more elegant Irish Minstrel, with the bard at
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the prow, his wild hair bound with a fillet, clutching his harp, a silent listener now, but he will sing you melodies strange and sweet and siren-like when the sails are hoysed and the furrow follows free. Here is a brightly painted blue and white cargo liner from Iceland, with a row of Viking faces on her deck and a row of gay nasturtiums round her funnel. What's a 'ome without a haspidistrer? These cool, northern ships bring with them an air from an untainted, thinly-peopled world. The Helmland reminds us of the Viking Othere's visit to King Alfred with tales of the midnight sun, vast frozen wastes, and the hunting of strange quarry, proffering an enormous walrus tooth to confound the polite scepticism of the King : Schooner-ship of Norway from distant Tromso, Barging through the North Sea from Greenland's icy skares With a cargo of seal skins, antlered elks, walrus tusks, Salted fish, mooses' skulls, and Arctic bears.
Yonder is the steam yacht Tuscarora, built on lovely, rakish, clipper lines, with holy-stoned deck and white ropes and gleaming brass and copper, a gilt-and-chocolate warrior at her prow with the light of battle in his eyes. Exquisite creature ! Would I might sail in thee for El Dorado and the Spanish Main ! And here is Latvian Dzenis from Riga, full of locust beans from the Mediterranean. What boy has not munched and munched thy fragrant cargo, ancient, barnacled, high-pooped wind-jammer ! I picture thee riding in a bucking beam-sea roll, And a drunken Dago crew, And thy nose held down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, From Cadiz Bar on the Long Trail, the trail that is always new.
And finally, for the list must needs have ending, is a great Yankee, almost bigger than the exiguous facilities of the port will accommodate, in all the hubbub and orderly disorder of departure, edging her way gingerly through the dock-gates to the darkeys and the cotton-fields of Alabama—home, dearie, home— •
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Where the drunken rollers comb, And the shouting seas drive by, And the engines stamp and ring, and the wet bows reel and swing, And the Southern Cross rides high. And the old lost stars wheel back, dear lass, that blaze on the velvet blue, They've all old friends on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, They're God's own guides on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.
And here are faces and figures not to be met with in the west end, where the smoothing iron of Respectability and Convention works. I think Sir Walter Scott points out that you will find everywhere fine ladies and gentlemen, and everywhere they are much the same, but it is in the labouring men
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and women that you will have to look for the characteristics of a race. There is a glut of Bardolphian noses, Pistolian mustachios, and Doll Tearsheet physiognomies. Here is a picaresque villain on the top of a lorry whose appearance makes Douglas Fairbanks in " The Black Pirate " look like a Sunday School Superintendent. And most of the men have that Robotesque stiffness which comes of much handling of machinery. But there is an eternal protest in the human spirit against the robotizing of character. You will see at one extreme the depths of rascality in the water-rats that haunt the wharves, and at the other beautiful faces of fine-charactered men whose lives are spent in the discipline of endless hardship. And the women are as varied as the men. Antique females graven in the likeness of a ship's figure-head by toil and weather, and as sexless, sun themselves in the doorway. You will see in early maturity women of the gait and carriage of sea-born Venus, with a wild and rolling eye, ready for the crapulous pleasantries of a stair-head row, and as ready to thaw into a genial welcome of gallant sailors a-sweeping home from sea. Fire-ships rigg'd up in a disguise ! On the faces of most is the aggressive glance bred by a life of insecurity. But the undeveloped young plants o' grace look as couthie and slee as ever they did in the Grassmarket in the days of the bonnets o' Bonnie Dundee. To reach the pier you must leave the harbour and turn down York Street, a bleak thoroughfare of ship-yards and tenements, where hover the ghosts of old ships, the tea-clippers for which the town was famous. There was the celebrated Thermopylae—hot stuff certainly—which travelled from Melbourne to London, some 12,000 miles, in 60 days ; the fourmaster Port Jackson which, according to Captain Whall in his book " Ships, Sea-Songs, and Shanties," was the most beautiful iron ship ever built, and which did a run of 345 knots in the 24 hours, while she also did Sydney to the Golden Gate in 30 days. Great running that, and exceeded only by the fastest steamers ! Though the Germans are attempting to revive fast sailing ships, and though they will never entirely die out any more than old soldiers, it will be a rare sight to see one— Aslant with trim tackle and shrouding, From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line, In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding—
as the Poet Laureate puts it in a poem memorable for its suggestion of the splendid labour of a ship under full sail. On the way to the pier I pass derelict ropeworks, desolate timber-yards—the centre of marine commercial gravity has shitted elsewhere. There is a drinking-trough decorated with song-loving dolphins rampant—reversed to face their native
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element. I like this kind of symbolism, though modern conditions are all against the recapture of the Greek mythopceic sense which enabled a man to hear a mermaid on a dolphin's back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid's music.
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Speaking of drinking troughs reminds me that even here one cannot get away from the School, for Dr. William Guild, Primar of King's College early in the 17th century, got the loan of the School bell " to be givin for redelyiverie of the same back againe, betwixt and Lambes next to come, to be thare putt up againe in its awin houssing upoun the said Doctour Guild his chairges." What would certain members of the School not give to have been alive in the days of such license in spelling ? And in York Street, too, there is Neptune Terrace, with the crowned visage of the weed-haired and bearded god above it, the gilt of its inscription rubbed grey with Time. Nor must I forget to linger by the crocketted turrets of the Church of St. Clement, the patron saint of tanners, who was martyred, as saints existed to be, by being flung into the sea with his symbol, an anchor, hung round his neck. The churchyard has a unique flavour, for many here have lapidary inscriptions whose bones lie deeper than ever plummet sounded, having suffered a final sea-change. One quaint quatrain I noted— Haste, haste 1 he Lyes in wait ; He's at the door, Insidious Death 1 Should his strong hand arrest, No composition sets the prison.
Some poor debtor suffering the final distraint at the hands of that grim-grinning Sheriff's officer ! But let us towards the end of our journey. Beyond York Street lies the land of Footdee, a " prunes and prisms" variant of the vulgar vernacular of Futty, turning its back— for there is scarcely a seaward window—on the savage, inhospitable main, preferring to gaze on backyards and sheds, and the gaunt little Bethel rising in the midst : 0 rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more !
Like shipwrecked Gonzalo they would give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, anything—and yet go back to it. The cabin ideal is realized in the houses ; each is snug and neat and very clean, to pleasure the gudeman wha's been sae lang awa'. In many of them is suspended from the roof a gilt or silvered ball, image of the round world on which the wandering Colin voyages. Their physical and mental characteristics mark them as a
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race apart—small feet, luxuriant hair, fresh complexions, quaint superstitions ; and in their fervent adherence to their own brand of sectarian piety they prefer the thunder of itinerant Savonarolas to a clergy of regular ministration. Potential fuel for revivals ! The antiquity of the place is attested by a tenement house in Pocra Quay on which is noted the existence of a fort at this site as early as 1477. Here we are at the Channel, the link between the tamed earth and the contentious sea ! On the top of the pilot-house is a crude stone statue of Grace Darling—my first heroine— carved long ago by a workman from a great rock taken out of the Channel. And still the stones come, for there is a dredger, Lady SOuthborough, in her labour wafting colicky groans ashore, or again wailing like a symphony of the damned, though in her more mellifluous moments I have heard her play a minor scale as well as an amateur orchestra. The narrowness and shallowness of the place has always been a source of trouble, for as early as 1548, Jean de Beauge was praising the harbour and damning the Channel. And a century or so later Thomas Tucker, one of Noll Cromwell's heavy-handed commissioners, was laboriously lodging a complaint to the same effect. Richard Franck, writing in 1656, has an amusing dialogue between Theophilus and Arnoldus on this very topic. An English visitor, Sir Anthony Weldon, is very severe on the inhabitants : " Their Sabbath exercise is a preaching in the forenoon and a persecuting in the afternoon; they go to the church in the forenoon to hear the law, and to the crags and mountains in the afternoon to louse themselves." In Cromwell's time the total tonnage was 310, distributed among nine vessels of a pigmy size. There is always something doing hereabout, An old lad clad in a bottle-green surtout is yanking out the spiritless gudgeon or mackerel three at a time. Adjoining him is a less successful piscator, unconscious of the hopeless incongruity of angling in plus fours for sewage fishes. The gulls are the loci genii—their shrill scream writes Finis to civilization. From them a paradox. As out of a bellyful of worms comes the song of the thrush, so out of sewage filth comes the loveliness of a gull's flight. Here is an end to landsmen's ways and things. In the Pilot Captain's office is a clock which disregards Acts of Parliament for those of a more imperious master, the tide ; where weathercocks are models of ships, where drying greens are sands, where traffic keeps to the right, where the red flag spells safety, and green is the hue of danger. You will see things all day long ; there is a battered caravanserai of the sea, with a shifting cargo and a list to port like a coal-heaver going home on pay-night with his overtime in the bar-till of " The Crown and Anchor." Outside the pier lie the ribs of a
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vessel which wandered there on a dark and stormy night, and has ever since remained in her unsought berth. The watchful pilot and a German skipper are exchanging incomprehensible but pleasing obscenities over the latter's disregard of the port signals, slanging each other with as hearty a gusto as ever did Falstaff and Prince Hal, acknowledged masters at the game. But it is time to go pierwards and say farewell to the scene and these halting reflections. It is morning, and I feel like Wordsworth on Westminster Bridge as I behold the sleeping sea. There are 40 miles of dim coast dear to me reaching far away to Buchan Ness, and southward bound by the green undulations of Balnagask. On the far horizon is a sailing ship, " a shadow of repose upon a line of gray." From her is wafted the crooning melody of a ghost-shantey, And we're bound for the Rio Grande I Then away, love, away, 'Way down Rio, So fare ye well, my pretty young gal, For we're bound for the Rio Grande.
Perhaps for nothing so material ! Perhaps for Calypso's isle, the Enchantments of Medea, the land of the lotus, the island Valley of Avilion, " where falls not hail nor rain, nor any snow," where we may heal us of our grievous wounds and live for ever in a dim ecstasy of content beyond the rubs of common life. And morning at sea ! But I will let Mr. D. H. Lawrence speak for that out of a memorable passage from " Sea and Sardinia," too long, unfortunately, to quote in full : " Ah, the lovely morning ! Away behind us the sun was just coming over the sea's horizon, and the sky all golden, all a joyous fire-heated gold, and the sea was glassy bright, the wind gone still, the waves sunk into long, low undulations. "The lovely dawn: the lovely pure wide morning in the mid-sea, so golden-aired and delighted, with the sea like sequins shaking, and the sky far, far, far above, unfathomably clear. What a golden hour for the heart of man! . . . " To find three masculine world-lost souls, and world-lost saunter and saunter on along with them, across the dithering space, as long as life lasts ! Why come to anchor ? There is nothing to anchor for. Land has no answer to the soul any more. It has gone inert. Give me a little ship, kind gods, and three lost comrades. Hear me! and let me wander aimless across this vivid outer world, the world empty of man, where space flies happily." I have omitted much, but all these things, and more also, you may see if you will. W. M. H.
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Tobacco Harvesting in Northern Rhodesia. The following is an extract from a letter written in March by DOUGLAS WILLIAM EDGAR GAULD (1914-20), from Mwangowe, Fort Jameson, Northern Rhodesia :— I begin harvesting to-morrow, and that's a very busy time, day and night. The leaves have been ripening up all last week and are now ready to harvest. If it's interesting to you, I shall give you a brief outline. A plant from birth to death has 32 leaves, but, of course, some leaves are taken off when planting from the nursery, perhaps three. Then after planting, one or two usually go bad and have to be removed. Then as the plant grows, one has to prune (i.e. take away bottom leaves), so that others may have all the oil possible. Thus, in a good season, a fair average is 18 curable leaves to a plant, and in a very good season, with good soil and seed, perhaps 22 leaves, but that is unusual. Owing to the two droughts (15 days and 11 days), the tobacco has been dwarfed, and my first tobacco will average about 15 leaves, which is nothing to grumble about, and these leaves are fine and big. After all the leaves have come out, the flower appears (same as tomato and potato flowers, but red, as the three are of the solanum family). When the flower is red it is removed (known as topping), so that all the growth goes to the leaves. This I have done, and about 50 per cent. of the first planting has flowered and the bottom leaves are ripe and ready to harvest to-morrow. One should really harvest when the weather is dry, as rain washes off all the oil in the leaves. However, wet or dry, I must harvest to-morrow, as they'll get over-ripe, and will be consequently uncurable. To cure, the leaves are hung back to back on each side of a bamboo, one pair alternating with another. Thus on a five-foot " sungwe" (bamboo) there are about 84 leaves. These are then hung on tiers in the barn, and the fires are started at 6 p.m. of the same day at 85° F. Next morning, at 6 a.m., the temperature is raised to 90° F. That same day, at 6 p.m., it is again raised to 95° F., and the following morning (6 a.m.) to 100° F. Then at 8 a.m. it is raised to 110° F., and this is the critical stage, for here one has to get the colour of pea green. When that is attained, the fires are raised to 140° F. in half an hour, so as to drive all moisture out at the ventilators in the top of the barn, for it sweats excessively. The temperature remains at 140° F. all that day and following night till 6 a.m. next morning, when it is raised till the leaf is thoroughly dried. Then fires are drawn and the tobacco is left to cool till it is handleable, as it is like powder when touched. That's the whole curing, and set on paper it seems easy, but it is most anxious work.
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Saint Columba. By W. Douglas Simpson, M.A., D.Litt., F.S.A.Scot. Aberdeen : Milne and Hutchison. 7/6. It is a far cry from the mute mediaeval castles of the north-east to Iona and the wealth of tradition centred round the personality of St. Columba ; but Dr. Simpson has shown himself to be as skilful at laying the ghosts of dead men as he is at raising the walls of their earthly habitations. Scottish history—the thought occurs to us—is not unlike an unexcavated Kildrummy or Coull. There is room for many spade-workers. We shall never see the past just as our ancestors saw it, but we should see more and better than we do were workers available to clear the ground and lay bare the foundations. This is as true of men as of things. There are not a few plaster saints, irreproachable Galahads and true-blue incorruptibles in our history. The qualities that made these men human are lost to sight, or if not entirely lost, we sometimes prefer not to see them. In giving us the " historical " St. Columba, Dr. Simpson has done a good service to Scottish history. St. Columba is, perhaps, of all our great men the most difficult to bring to life. The centuries that divide his time from ours, the spirit of early Christianity so hard to recapture, the social, political, and racial conditions of a long-vanished civilization, all tend to make him seem a far-off and unreal figure. Many pitfalls in the nature of linguistic difficulties and difficulties of archa °logical interpretation await the unwary historian. But when every allowance is made it is possible to know St. Columba more intimately than we do, and Dr. Simpson has made our task the easier. He is partly indebted to other workers in the same or adjacent fields, but the presentation of St. Columba's life and character in its entirety is his own. The new light is admitted from two quarters. From the written authorities St. Columba is shown as a man connected with and deeply concerned in the political events of his time ; and the archaological material collected in recent years by the Society of Antiquaries is adduced to demonstrate the extent and the limitations of his missionary enterprise. Since the Reformation, politician has almost become a term of reproach when applied to Churchmen, but St. Columba was a politician, and the attempts he made to reconcile his various loyalties, if the most tragic, are certainly the most human part of his career. He was race conscious and clan conscious, conscious, too, of the nobility of his line, as well as of the great mission to which he was ordained at Clonard on the Boyne. Dr. Simpson
THE HISTORICAL SAINT COLUMBA.
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does not screen the fact as others have done, that three times at least he shared the responsibility for the shedding of blood in civil war. Even the famous visit to King Brude at Inverness in 564 was probably a political rather than a religious mission, a mission in which Columba was accompanied by St. Comgall the Great of Bangor, although Adamnan,Columba's biographer, would exalt Columba by neglecting to disclose the eminence of his companions. The Historical Saint Columba is in a sense complementary to the author's earlier work on The Origins of Christianity in Aberdeenshire. The evidence that was there adduced to enlarge the sphere and importance of the mission of St. Ninian and the Brito-Pictish Church is here used to restrict the activities of the Church of Iona. Beyond the mountain barrier of Drumalban there were flourishing religious communities before Columba left the shores of his native land, and to this quarter his influence, at least in his lifetime, did not extend. Not until Rome in the eighth and ninth centuries gave the Church organization and unity did the myth of the far-travelled missionary from Iona arise, and the foundations of Colm, the disciple of St. Drostan of the Picts, became the foundations of Columba. The archaeological evidence seems overwhelming. The characteristic symbol-marked stones are found in great abundance all over eastern Pictland in the area served by the Church of St. Ninian and Kentigern, but not at all in the Scotic region west of Drumalban. Thanks are due to Dr. Simpson and the publishers for the excellent plates. They include not only a considerable number of the sculptured stones, but also views of the hill-fort at'Dunadd, maps, and- plan of Iona, as well as the famous " St. Columba's Pillow." We mention this last because Dr. Simpson is no mere iconoclast. He fittingly ends his book with a note of gratitude at the thought of one who is no less great but more human. " No one can gainsay," he writes, " thaethe Scotic Church of Iona was emphatically one of the foremost branches of the Church Catholic, and that the fame of its forceful founder must ever bulk rightly large in the annals of missionary Christendom. For Scotland, at all events, the figure of St. Columba stands luminously forth as the most vivid, real and commanding personality in the whole range of her early history."
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School Notes.
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There is a myth that the summer term is the easiest and best of the School session. This may be the case in so far as the lower classes are concerned, but the experiences of these last two years have effectually blotted out any recollection of " easiness " from the minds of the members of the Sixth. Oral exams., special medal exams., and, of course, the Bursary Comp. make one's life a nightmare. In these circumstances the writing of " School Notes " is a positive relief. * * * We have to welcome to the School this term Mr. J. Lynch as a teacher of Science. We wish Mr. Lynch a long and happy connexion with the School. * * * We offer our heartiest congratulations to Mr. W. Donald on his recent marriage. Miss Cheyne, who has for some time assisted Mr. Summers in the Gymnasium, and who has left to be married, has the School's best wishes for her future happiness. * * * The Dramatic Society gave a performance before a good "house" in the Hall on Wednesday, 20th April. Four one-act plays were produced. " Allison's Lad " and " The Bishop's Candlesticks " were in serious vein, and " Under the Skull and Crossbones " and " The Crimson Coconut " were of a humorous character. * * * " Allison's Lad " and " Under the Skull and Crossbones " were performed by the Junior Section of the Society, and right heartily did the youthful actors enter into the spirit of the latter play. The former was, however, rather heavy. The Senior Section gave a really first-rate performance of " The Bishop's Candlesticks," and P. A. T. Bate and T. H. Murdoch are to be heartily congratulated on their fine interpretation of the chief characters in the play. Both revealed the true dramatic sense. "The Crimson Coconut" was in the nature of a farce, with Russian anarchists, a cheap detective, and the inevitable bomb. H. W. Wrigglesworth gave a clever portrayal of a doddering old waiter. The School Orchestra gave selections from their repertoire between the plays. The whole programme was thoroughly enjoyed, and we may confidently look forward to having something good from the Dramatic Society next year. * * * Empire Day was celebrated as in previous years. In the morning, Professor Gray addressed the School. Professor Gray is a most interesting and witty speaker, and held the
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attention of the School throughout his address. In the afternoon, the annual Masters v. Boys cricket match was played with the usual result—the 1st XI won, but the Masters put up a good fight. * * * Group photographs of the School were taken recently. They have come out very well and should find a ready sale. * * * Stirred to the depths of his soul by the lyrics which have appeared in the Girls' High School Magazine, a budding poet has essayed the following. He evidently imagines that the only imperfection is in the second-last line :— IMPERFECT TRIOLET ON A RABBIT. 'Twas a duck that I feared, 'Twas a hundred I cherished ; Going out, I was cheered, 'Twas a duck that I feared ! Then the bowler careered And my wicket had perished : 'Twas a duck—as I feared ; 'Twas a hundred I cherished. * * * The new Gymnasium is nearing completion. The roof is slated, and only the interior work remains to be done. We who are leaving School are just a trifle envious of those whose good fortune it will be to do their " jerks " in a first-class gymnasium. Next session will see a number of changes in the School—the new Gymnasium, new classrooms, the Shanghai Clock, the refitted laboratories, and—best of all—a Prefects' room. * * * The School Orchestra is growing more popular every year. This year it has given more outside performances than ever before, and to crown its achievements, it recently broadcast a short programme. This was such a success that the Orchestra has been asked to give another broadcast next year. We must also mention the interesting and entertaining concert which brought the Debating Society's session to a close. The Orchestra gave selections from the works of Schubert, and Mr. Mackenzie Forbes and friends sang solos and part songs by the same composer. The Orchestra has become an institution in the School, and all boys who are able to play any musical instrument—we say musical advisedly—would do well to join. * * * The Art Club has as large a membership as ever this year, but unfortunately many of the Saturday outings have been
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spoiled by rain. The Club's position financially is very sound, and the Sketch Books and Calendars sold well. * * * This year, in addition to a Doubles Championship in Tennis, the Games Master has instituted a Singles Championship, and the winner will have the title of School Tennis Champion. * * • * The Swimming Sports took place at the Corporation Baths on Friday, 10th June, and were most successful. R. Groundwater won the Rector's Cup in one minute, forty-three seconds, and the House race was won by Keith House. * * * School year is, of course, the event of The most interesting the Sports, and it is unfortunate that we are unable to have a report of them in the Magazine. They were a great success last year despite the rain which somewhat marred the events on the Saturday afternoon. We hope for a few days of good weather—now long overdue—and we are confident that the Sports this year will be as successful as in the past. * * * It is a sad reflection that the penning of this paragraph— the last we shall write for " School Notes "—means that our School life has almost finished. It has been our good fortune to have attended School for almost seven years, and we hope we carry with us something of that spirit and mode of thought which are the School's best gifts to her sons. Others may emulate, but none can equal the old School.
Scout Notes. In the beginning of March the 1st Troop made a presentation to Mr. George Walker. The event marks the end of a long and active connexion with the 1st. As Scout, Patrol Leader, Scoutmaster, and Treasurer, he has taken a big share in the Troop's Scouting. His cheerful personality has endeared him to all, and School Scouts in general join with the 1st in wishing him all success in his new post in Brazil. Appetites for the camping season were early whetted when, in March, Mr. H. D. Welsh gave a talk entitled " On the Roof of Scotland" or " Hiking in the Cairngorms." The 17th made arrangements in their own Headquarters for all Scouts to hear this lecture, and for two hours Mr. Welsh enthralled his audience by accounts of daring hill-climbing experiences, illustrated by his own lantern slides. This narration of splendid mountaineering feats was of particular interest to the 17th themselves. A week later a large party of the Troop's Scouts were to be in the Cairngorms :
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and in spite of the earliness of the season they carried out their plans. They camped cosily in the chalet (of Kindrochit excavation fame) and explored the Braemar country for a week. They climbed Morrone and Carn-a-Sgliat and other nearby hills : they visited the Colonel's Bed, the Linns of Dee and Quoich, the Falls of Garbhallt, the Breakneck Falls, and Loch Callater. Their greatest venture was an ascent up Corrie Etchachan, over into Loch-Avon and the Shelter Stone. Their names are the first for the season in the Shelter Stone Visitors' Book, and they experienced the thrill of clambering through deep snow and of going through a snow blizzard. Loch Etchachan itself was frozen so hard they could have crossed it safely from shore to shore. As the parent responsible for motor-transport on this Braemar venture Mr. Shinnie earns the Troop's warmest gratitude. It was a new departure in Easter Camping, and one of undying memory for those who took part. The other Troops went to their old camping haunts in the low grounds. The glens of the Hill o' Fare country and the woods of the Cowdray estate afford ideal scouting territory, and the Scouts took full use of their privileges. The new Tracker's Badge set them working on new tracking lines : the familiar tests were attacked with zest, and the 1st camp showed a record number of 2nd Class passes. The wellknown Barmekin was everyone's hill-climb. On the west side of it lay the 1st camp, and on the east the 9th and 38th together. The 1st, making a bee-line for Dunecht, went over the Barmekin one morning and challenged the eastern Troops to soccer. They returned at night beaten, well-fed, and soaked to the skins. In better weather, the 9th and 38th looked down from the old hill fort's ramparts upon the tents at Midmar and out to the snows of the Cairngorms. It is well that the Troops seized upon Easter for camping : the weather has given a set-back to camping ever since. Many plans were made, most of them only to be abandoned, for the May Holiday week-end. Two of the 1st, however, were not to be held back by cold and snow, and went their proposed cycle tour on Deeside. Over a dozen of the Troop were also camping out. One or two of the 9th joined in with the 33rd for a camp at Kingswells, and a Patrol spent the week-end snugly in a gardener's bothy at Cluny. Yet another Patrol had the novel experience of a caravan tour, going up Feughside as far as the Red Path to Glendye. The Patrol has a new interest in horses after this adventurous trek. Since then, Patrols representing their Troops in the County Flag Competition have been endeavouring to put in practice during week-ends of sorry weather conditions. All School Troops, except the 9th, have taken 1st or 2nd places in their
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respective sections of the preliminary test, and consequently are entered for the final. Results just to hand place the 17th as winners of the County Flag. Again the Benmore Shield for Aberdeen ! A long tale of bad weather ! Aberdeen Scout Week was marred by rain, even by thunder and lightning. The Troops gave good account of themselves in the clansmen's fight of Kincorth, fought in a fog. Another triumph, this, of the imagination of Dr. W. Douglas Simpson! How frequently and well, in the old days at Couparstone Lane and Rubislaw, did Dr. Simpson organize elaborate historical games, and his latest scheme was enjoyed out and out. The School Scout swimmers and athletes did well in the gala and sports, the 9th retaining the Norrie Athletic Shield for the third time in succession. The outstanding achievement of the week, however, was the winning by the 9th Pack of the Totem Pole—an event upon which C./M.Wallace Porter is to be heartily congratulated. A number of changes call for notice. In the 1st, P/Ls Ronald and Charles Skene become A/SMs. From the 9th, Second Ian Thom goes as A/C.M. to the 17th Pack, and Scout James Thom to be an A/S.M. in the 1st Stoneywood Troop. Scout A. N. Smith takes his place as Cub Instructor to the 9th Pack, and P/L. Maurice Cramb a similar position in the 17th Pack. In this Pack William Cramb succeeds A. Cruickshank as C./M., the latter becoming a District Cubmaster. Mr. Dowie, of the National Bank, takes the post of Troop Treasurer in the 1st. Before the Troop breaks up for the summer holidays the 1st is making every preparation for its Café Chantant in October or November. Already the play " Vice Versa," with Mrs. Henry Davidson as producer, is going with a swing, and Mrs. Hendrick is beginning her arduous work as convener. A first-class show all round is assured. It is some time since the Troop made its last appeal, and it is many weeks before its Café is due ; but it is not too early to hope that the 1st will be generously supported. Meanwhile there are summer camps to think about. The 1st go to Kinord, the 9th to Pitfour, the 17th to Methlick, and the 38th to Finzean. Of Cub camps there are two—the 1st Pack going to Banchory and the 9th to Pitfour. May the weather be such that everyone can sleep out around the camp fire.
School Cricket. Up to the present School have had a very s .ccessful season, having played nine matches, seven of which have been won, one lost, and one drawn.
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30th April.—School v. A.G.S.F.P.s at Rubislaw. Result : School, 113 ; F.P.s, 51. SCHOOL. . 50 J. Robertson . 3 A. B. Donald . 17 J. Mortimer . . 29 G. Dodds . . 3 . J. H. Laing . . 1 R. J. Thom . 0 . G. Cruickshank . 2 R. Greig . . 0 A. Bain . . 0 I. F. Booth . . 0 — Engstrom . 8 Extras •
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14th May.—School v. Gordon's College. Result : School, 103 ; Gordon's, 54. SCHOOL. . 9 J. M. Robertson . 5 A. B. Donald . 21 A. J. Lockhart . 28 J. Mortimer . . 12 G. Dodds G. Cruickshank . 7 . 0 J. H. Laing . 12 I. F. Booth . . 3 R. F. Greig . . 5 M. Duguid . . 0 R. J. Thom . 1 Extras
17th May.—School v. Balmoral. Result : School, 78 for 7 wickets; Balmoral, 69. SCHOOL. J. M. Robertson . • 14 A. B. Donald • 4 A. J. Lockhart . • 4 J. Mortimer . • 8 • 4 G. Dodds . . • 27 G. Cruickshank I. F. Booth . . 1 R. F. Greig, not out • 12 4 Extras . — 78
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Personally patronised by Their Majesties The King and Queen, and Royal Family. Covered way from Station Platforms to Hotel Entrance, and Passenger and Luggage Lifts. Porters in RED COATS attend all trains. Electric Light, Lifts, Central Heating, Garage, etc. Private Luncheons, Dinners, Weddings, Dances, Meetings, Celebrations, etc., specially catered for. Telegraphic Address—
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24th May.—Masters v. Boys. Result : School, 55 ; Masters, 37.
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28th May.—School v. Huntly. Result : School, 115 for 8 ; Huntly, 19. SCHOOL. . 4 J. Mortimer . . 4 A. J. Lockhart . 11 G. W. Dodds . 2 G. Cruickshank . 27 R. F. Greig, not out . 22 . . J. Begg . 6 I. F. Booth . . . . 0 J. Cruickshank . 9 M. Duguid . . . 18 W. Stephen, not out . 13 Extras . — 115 R. J. Thom did not bat. Bowling—Thom, 5 wickets for 8 ; Mortimer, 4 for 8.
7th June.—School v. North U.F. Result : School, 48 for 4 wickets; North U.F., 21.
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9th June.—School v. 'Varsity (A) XI. Result: School, 78 for 4 wickets; 'Varsity (A), 44 for 4 wickets. SCHOOL. . . . 0 . 26 I. F. Booth . . J. M. Robertson . . . 2 Extras . . . . 11 A. B. Donald -_ . . . 6 J. Mortimer . 78 . 32 G. W. Dodds, not out . . 1 G. Cruickshank, not out M. Duguid, J. W. B. Cruickshank, J. Laing, W. Stephen, R. J• Thom did not bat.
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School Office-Bearers for Session 1926-1927. Prefects. A. M. SCRIMGEOUR (Sen. Prefect). W. A. B. HAMILTON. J. M. GOSSIP.
P. A. T. BATE. J. L. DUCAT. G. J. SUMMERS.
Games Committee. - THE RECTOR. President, - Mr. DUNCAN MCGREGOR. Treasurer, and Hon. Secretary Mr. JAMES DAVIDSON, M.A. A. M. SCRIMGEOUR. A. B. DONALD. J. C. THOM. J. M. ROBERTSON. J. A. HAY. J. S. STEPHEN.
G. A. M. SAUNDERS. R. D. MACPHERSON. G. BOWES. I. FLOCKHART. D. MIDDLETON. J. R. S. THIRD. H. WRIGGLESWORTH. J. M. GOSSIP.
G. W. DODDS. J. L. DUCAT. A. J. LOCKHART. D. ABERNETHY. A. N. SMITH. J. MORTIMER. R. W. J. THOM.
Captain, -
Rugby Football. A. M. SCRIMGEOUR. I Vice-Captain,
Cafitain, -
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Cricket. A. B. DONALD. I Vice-Captain, J. M. ROBERTSON.
Swimming. J. H. LAING. I Secretary, -
Ca4tain, -
- G. W. BOWES.
Tennis. Captain, - G. A. M. SAUNDERS. I Secretary,
N. C. DUFFUS.
Literary and Debating Society. J. M. GOSSIP. N. F. HENRY. C. MARSHALL. Vice-Presidents, -
President,
A. M. SCRIMGEOUR.
W. A. B. HAMILTON. Secretary and Treasurer, Committee. A. B. DONALD. J. H. RITCHIE. W. CRAIG.
A. MACDONALD.
Orchestral Society. President, -
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Art Club. - ALEX. M. HARDIE. Secretary and Treasurer, Magazine " Committee—School Representatives. \V. A. B. HAMILTON. School Editor, J. M. GOSSIP. • • Literary Editor, A. M. SCRIMGEOUR. Sports Editor,
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The Former Pupils' Club. FOUNDED 1893.
s
OresiDent i JoiiN MAi.coLm Bur.Locu, AL.\ ., LL.D. Vice.Presibent anD Cbatrman of Egecutive: ALEXANDER MCKENZIE JOHNSTON.
THEODORE
Secretarg anti Creasurer : WArr, M.A., The Rosemount Press, Aberdeen. Essistaitt Secretarr:
DONALD A. DAVIDSON, B.L., 6 Golden Square, Aberdeen.
Secretaries 01 Sections: London Section— JoHN Thom, 51 Charterhouse Street, E.C. 1. [This Section comprises, without additional subscription, all Members of the Club resident in London, and within a radius of 50 miles.]
Rugby Section—RICHARD IRVIN, 86 Queen's Road. Hockey Section—DANIEL J. WALKER, 22 Rosebery Street. Cricket Section—ALEXANDER J. ALLAN, 54 Whitehall Road. Tennis Section—G. E. S. HERVEV, Monteviot, Springfield Road, Mannofield. Motor Section—C. G. BROWN, Westwood, Craigton Road. Rates of Subscription for Membership: Life Membership . . . . . £5 5 0 Ordinary Membership— For those under 21 years of age at commencement of Club year (1st January) . 0 2 6 For those of 21 years of age and upwards . 0 5 0
Club Colours. Members of the F.P. Club are reminded that the supplying of Club Colours has been placed by the Executive in the hands of a single firm and that Messrs. Esslemont & Macintosh, Ltd., Union Street, Aberdeen, are the sole official outfitters to the Club. The object of the Executive in appointing only one firm was, as previously stated, to try to prevent the sale of Club Colours to unauthorized persons. Members of the Club are, therefore, earnestly requested to deal only with the official outfitters, who have been supplied with a list of the members of the Club, and who take every precaution to see that the Colours are sold to none but those who have the right to wear them.
214
Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.
Club Consuls. The resignation from the post of Consul for Selangor, F.M.S., has been received from David Graeme Robertson, who has come home from Kuala Lumpur and is now permanently resident in Aberdeen. To fill this post Colin Hay Miller has just been appointed. Full List of Consuls. AUSTRALIA (New South Wales) :—HERBERT A. BREMNER (1893-95), Commonwealth Oxygen and Accessories, Ltd., Balmain, Sydney. AUSTRALIA (Victoria) :—THOMAS G. WATSON (1896-99), Box 26, Stock Exchange, Melbourne. BERMUDA :-LAWRENCE OGILVIE (1907-10), M.A., B.Sc., Agricultural Station, Bermuda. BORNEO :—Rt. Rev. E. D. LOGIE DANSON (1892-94), D.D., Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak, Bishop's House, Kucking, Sarawak, via Singapore. [At present on furlough.] CANADA (Alberta) :—JOHN CHARLES MURRAY LIGERTWOOD (1903-06), C.A., c/o Messrs. Marwick, Mitchell & Co., 27 Canada Life Building, Calgary. CANADA (British Columbia) :—WILLIAM ERNEST MILNE (1881-90), 347 Water Street, Vancouver. CANADA (New Brunswick) :—WILLIAM MENZIES KESSON (1893-98), Fredericton. CANADA (Nova Scotia) :—GEORGE MACKENZIE WOOD (18801882), c/o Messrs. Joseph Wood & Co., Central Wharf, Halifax. CANADA (Ontario) :—ROBERT FLEMING (1891-98), C.E., c/o Messrs. Wood, Fleming & Co., Royal Bank Buildings, Toronto. CANADA (Quebec) :—JAMES A. ANGUS (1894-99), 340 Hampton Avenue, Montreal. CENTRAL AMERICA (Guatemala) :—CHARLES H. MOIR (1873-76), 4a Avenida Norte No. 30, Guatemala, via New Orleans and Puerto Barrios. CEYLON :—DAVID SCOTT (1886-94), c/o Messrs. Lewis Brown & Co., Colombo. [At present residing at 36 Rubislaw Den South, Aberdeen.] CHILE :-JAMES ALEXANDER RHIND (1902-04), The AngloChilian Consolidated Nitrate Corporation, Tocopilla. CHINA (Shanghai) :--GEORGE ALSTON BUYERS (1906-08), C.A., 2 Canton Road, Shanghai. CUBA :-ALLAN CUNNINGHAM ANDERSON (1907-12), Royal Bank of Canada, Havana. CZECHOSLOVAKIA :—Captain JOHN WILLIAM TAYLOR (19061911), M.A., F.R.G.S., His Britannic Majesty's Vice-Consul, Prague. F.M.S. (Negri Sembilan) :—DONALD TRENCH SKEEN (18951899), M.B., Seremban. F.M.S. (Perak) :—WILLIAM PATERSON (1900-03), Teja Estate, Batu Gajah. F.M.S. (Selangor) :—COLIN HAY MILLER (1900-04), Lenggeng Estate, Semenyih P.O. FIJI :-KENNETH JAMES ALLARDYCE (1894-95), Nabavatu.
•
i
•
4
BON RECti Best Quality All-Wool
GRAMMAR BLAZERS 7
Fit 6
9
8
11
10
12
years
18/6, 19/6, 20/6, 21/6, 22/6, 23/6, 24/6, 14
15
16
17
18 years
26/6,
27/6,
28/6,
29/6,
30/6
Fit 13
25/6,
BOYS' SHORTS TO MATCH, OF SAME MATERIAL Fit 6 years, 10/6 upwards (With double seats, 1/- extra)
GRAMMAR SCHOOL ALL-WOOL JERSEYS 24
26
28
30
32
inches
10/6, 10/9, 11/6, 11/9, 12/6 Ties to match, 1/11 OFFICIAL OUTFITTERS for the Former Pupils' Blazers, Ties, Mufflers, Sweaters, Cricket Caps, Rugby Shirts, Hose, and Shorts
Esslemont & Macintosh, Ltd. UNION
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,...
EVERYTHING FOR
EVERY SPORT AT
THE RUBBER SHOP 16-18 ST. NICHOLAS STREET
ABERDEEN (RUBBER SHOPS, LTD.)
Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.
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•
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215
FRANCE :-WILLIAM GRAY (1884-94), 11 Rue Louis le Grand, Paris (2e). GERMANY :—JAMES GORDON DANIELSON (1896-1901), Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Monckeberg Strasse 27, Hamburg, 1. GOLD COAST COLONY :-WILLIAM MILLER (1894-?), Resident Engineer, Takoradi Harbour Works, Sekondi. INDIA (Assam) :—WILLIAM H. G. HALLY (1889-96), Singlo Tea Co., Ltd., Jaboka Division, Sonari P.O. INDIA (Bengal) :—G. F. ROSE (1881-92), c/o Messrs. Andrew Yule and Co., Ltd., 8 Clive Row, Calcutta. INDIA (Bombay) :—GEORGE ALEXANDER THOMSON (19031906), Chartered Bank, Bombay. INDIA (Central Provinces) :—JOHN HALL RITCHIE (1903-09), M.A., B.Sc., Agricultural Department, Jubbulpur. INDIA (Madras) :—Rev. Principal WILLIAM MESTON (1881-86), M.A., D.D., Christian College, Madras. INDIA (Punjab) :—WILLIAM NORMAN LESLIE (1892-95), M.A., B.L., Southern Punjab Railway Co., Ltd., Ferozepore. INDIA (Rajputana) :—GEORGE TAYLOR SIMPSON (1910-20), Jodhpur State Railway, Jodhpur. INDIA (Travancore) :—JOHN FORBES FRASER (1879-83), Travancore Tea Estates Co., Ltd., Bonami, Peermade P.O. INDIA (United Provinces) :—ALEXANDER MACGREGOR WILLIAMSON (1908-11), c/o The Cawnpore Woollen Mills Co., Ltd., Cawnpore. NEW ZEALAND :--Dr. THEODORE GRANT GRAY (1895-1901), Government Buildings, Wellington. GRANT Provinces) :—CAMPBELL NIGERIA (Northern McKENZIE (1910-12), Gombe, Bauchi Province. NIGERIA (Southern Provinces) :—Dr. WILLIAM EDWARD GLOVER (1896-98), c/o The Principal Medical Officer, Lagos. PALESTINE :-ROBERT BLAKE WORSLEY HOLMES (1895), General Manager, Palestine Railways, Haifa. POLAND :—JAMES BRYCE CLARKE (1896-99), Anglo-Polish Bank, Warsaw. RHODESIA (Southern) :—NORMAN ALEXANDER SINCLAIR (1913-16), Midlothian Syndicate, Midlothian Farm, P.B., Salisbury. SOUTH AFRICA (Cape Province) :—Dr. ALEXANDER MARR GEDDES (1897-1903), go The Secretary of the F.P. Club. SOUTH AFRICA (Natal) :—DAVID STRACHAN (1893-1902), 19 Hulston's Buildings, Durban.. SOUTH AFRICA (Orange Free State) :—DOUGLAS GORDON BISSET (1890-1900), Castor Siding, Private Bag, Bloemfontein. SOUTH AFRICA (Transvaal) :—JAMES MOIR (1881-93), M.A., D.Sc., Government Laboratory, Box 1080, Johannesburg. SOUTH AMERICA (The Argentine) :—REGINALD J. G. WILSON (1905-11), British Bank of South America, Ltd., Buenos Aires. SOUTH AMERICA (Brazil) :—A. BAIN MACKIE (1896-1904), Royal Bank of Canada, Caixa do Correio No. 300, Rio de Janeiro. STRAITS SETTLEMENTS (Penang) :—JOHN RHYS DANSON (1897-1903), Municipal Office, Penang. STRAITS SETTLEMENTS (Singapore) :—JOHN IVO DAWSON (1900-04), go Messrs. Guthrie & Co., Singapore. [At present on furlough.]
216
Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.
SUDAN :-JAMES LORIMER SOUPER (1898-1909), P. W. D., Wad Medani. SUMATRA :—EDWARD PERCY BARNETT (1895-1903), The Bandar Sumatra Rubber Co., Ltd., Bandar Pinang, P.O., Galang, E.C., Sumatra. UGANDA :—GRAEME GEORGE SUTHERLAND (1903-09), Bulyango Estate, P.O., Masindi. UNITED STATES (Chicago) :—THOMAS B. G. HENDERSON (1894-1900), 1715 Illinois Merchants Bank Building, Chicago. UNITED STATES (New York) :—WILLIAM MACKINTOSH (1893-96), Royal Insurance Co., Ltd., 84 William Street, New York. UNITED STATES (Island of Hawaii) :—LOUIS WILSON (18721875), Hilo, Hawaii. WEST INDIES (Tobago) :—KENNETH REID (1901-04), King's Bay. WEST INDIES (Trinidad) :—ARCHIBALD YOUNG (1885-93), c/o Messrs. Alston & Co., Ltd., Port of Spain.
Proposed Social Club Room. Some time ago a suggestion was made that the central hall of the Pavilion at Rubislaw Field might be used as a Social Club Room in connexion with the Former Pupils' Club, and the Executive appointed a sub-committee to ascertain whether the proposal was likely to meet with support, and if so, to formulate a complete scheme. After making enquiries the sub-committee came to the conclusion that the necessary support would be forthcoming and brought forward a scheme which has met with the approval of the Rubislaw Field Committee. The main points of the scheme are as follows :— (1) The Club Room will be open on three evenings a week from October to April inclusive, from 7 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. (2) The Annual Subscription will be 7/6. (3) Facilities will be provided for cards, etc., and magazines and papers will be supplied. Light refreshments will be obtainable, and members will be allowed to introduce guests under certain conditions. It is suggested that the Club Room would make an excellent meeting place for members of the Sports Sections of the Club who wish to discuss games. In order to set the scheme agoing a meeting will be held in the Pavilion at Rubislaw Field on Thursday, 1st September, at 7.30 p.m., and it is hoped that there will be a large attendance of all interested. Any F.P. who wishes to join is invited to communicate forthwith with any of the members of the sub-committee, viz.: J. Lennox Riddell (Convener), A. J. Allan, J. Patrick Jeffrey, and James Leith, Jun.
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Members of the F.P. Club visiting Aberdeen are requested to sign the Visitors' Register of the Club, which is kept at the School. The Secretary of the Club will he pleased if Members from a distance will, when in Aberdeen, in addition to signing the Register pay him a visit at The Rosemount Press. He is always delighted to be brought into personal touch with F.P.s, and will gladly do all in his power to assist them. For the convenience of visitors a plan is given above showing where The Rosemount Press is situated.
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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.
217
The Cricket Section. The cricket season is now in full swing but, unfortunately, the weather conditions are very much against good cricket. The 1st XI have played six matches, having won three and lost three. The best performance so far was against Mannofield XI in the first round of the Aberdeenshire Cup, when the F.P.s dismissed Mannofield XI for 46 and proceeded to make 81 for 5 wickets. The feature of the match was the fine bowling of A. McBain and A. J. Allan, the former having 5 wickets for 19 and the latter 3 for 24. McBain had a pretty innings of 51. He, along with Alex. Wilson, did much to win the match. Our fielding was very good. The 2nd XI have so far played four matches, having won one and lost three.
The Tennis Section. The Tennis Section is again to the fore, and although composed mostly of younger members, is hoping to keep up its reputation in some attractive fixtures arranged for July. There has been very little practice so far owing to the wretched weather conditions. Any boy leaving School at the end of this term may join for the remainder of the season, subscription 15/-.
The London Section. Thirty-five members gathered at the Engineers' Club on 30th March to hear a lecture by Lieut.-Colonel Sir David Prain, C.M.G., F.R.S., the famous botanist. Lord Meston presided. It is difficult for a layman to do justice to Sir David's wide knowledge on the subject of plants and vegetables. We expect our corn, wine, and oil to come to us in its proper form—and in sufficient quantity— without asking any questions as to its origin and treatment. Sir David, however, gets right down to the root of the matter, so to speak. I can imagine most of us would have been floored in a general knowledge paper with the questions he answered for us. Was the potato mentioned by Shakespeare the humble tattie known to us from our youth up ? Where did wheat come from ? Why was the Jerusalem Artichoke so called ? Members of the Mustard Club were interested to learn that their favourite condiment was a necessity in the old days as a protection against scurvy—in those days when salt beef was one of the main articles of diet. Lord Meston thanked the lecturer for the care and trouble he had taken in the preparation of a paper for the Club, and so ended the meeting and another successful season for the London Section.—C.E.G.
The Motor Section. This Section of the Club is undoubtedly in a flourishing condition. The first three fixtures in the season's programme have been carried through very successfully, and—what is more encouraging to the officials—new members are gradually joining up. On 24th April the opening run took place, and the party who journeyed to the Burn o' Vat thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Although the afternoon became rather showery, the party arrived back in Aberdeen very pleased with their outing. A fortnight later a very large number met at Queen's Cross for the second event, which took the form of a Flexibility Hill Climb. In brilliant sunshine the competitors performed on a steep hill near Bucksburn, the results being :500 c.c. Class. lst—J. G. Brown (Norton). 2nd—J. Morrice (Sunbeam). 350 c.c. Class. 1st—I. Flockhart (A. J.S.). 2nd—C. Cromar (New Imperial).
218
Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.
Afterwards a brake test was held, resulting as follows :— lst—C. S. Brown (P. & M.). 2nd—W. Merrilees (Ariel). 3rd—D. Bruce (New Imperial). On Saturday, 21st May, eight enthusiasts turned out in tearing rain to compete for a silver cup presented to the Club by G. Cheyne, motor agent, Holburn Street. The event took the form of a fairly stiff reliability trial, and the weather conditions greatly increased the difficulties. The course consisted of eighty miles of second-class roads, interspersed with woodland tracks, watersplashes and moorland paths. In spite of all difficulties four competitors finished the course, and to them is due all praise for their excellent performance. The results were 1st Prize—G. Cheyne Silver Cup—J. G. Brown (Norton). 2nd Prize—J. Fairweather (B.S.A.). 3rd Prize—D. Bruce—(New Imperial).
List of New Members of the Club. LIFE MEMBERS. Alexander, William McCombie (1887-96), M.A., B.I,., Derrywood, Banchory. Benzie, John William (1912-19), Morkeu, Cults. Black, Frank Charles Briscoe (1914-17), 71 Forest Avenue, Aberdeen. Boyd, Edmund Blaikie (1900-12), M.A., 29 Highcroft Gardens, London, N.W. 11. Cheyne, D. Gordon (1901-05), M.D., Major, R.A.M.C., H.Q., Shanghai Defence Force, Shanghai. McBain, Alan (1903-14), M.A., C.A., 12 Rubislaw Den North, Aberdeen. Scott, Herbert Brebner (1905-08), Royal Insurance Co., Ltd., Shanghai. Watt, Alexander Mackay (1895-1903), 24 Rubislaw Den North, Aberdeen. ORDINARY MEMBERS. Benzie, Walter George Swan Marr, Gordon Paterson (1921-26), (1917-19), Morkeu, Cults. 4 Grampian Circle, Balnagask, Cay, Edward (1918-25), 120 Aberdeen. Crown Street, Aberdeen. Murray, Henry (1919-25), 21 Cheyne, John Alexander (1921Deemount Road, Aberdeen. 26), 68 Gray Street, Aberdeen. Neilson, William Agnew Duncan Collie, George Francis (1916-26), (1917-24), Stamford House, 10 Bon-Accord Crescent, AberBromham Road, Bedford. deen. Philip, Frederick Strathern (1914Cruickshank, Ian Douglas (191924), 17 Comeragh Road, West 23), 57 Victoria Street, AberKensington, London, W.14. deen. Smart, Edward David Alexander Duncan, Harry Fraser (1911-17), (1907-19), Highfield House, 66 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen. Elgin. Edwards, Eric A. T. (1911-22), Walker, Alexander (1923-25), Old 57 Forest Avenue, Aberdeen. Golf House, Links, Aberdeen. Fraser, Alexander (1923-25), 52 Williamson, Stanley George (1922Salisbury Terrace, Aberdeen. 25), 62 Albury Road, Aberdeen. Gordon, Robert Anderson (1925- Wilson, Alan Johnston (1916-23), 26), 48 Fountainhall Road, 101 Sunnyside Road, Aberdeen. Aberdeen. Wilson, George Grant (1913-20), Hay, John Jerome (1920-26), 14 26 Brighton Place, Aberdeen. Huntly Street, Aberdeen. Young, Archibald Graham Brown Lees, John Drennan (1914-26), 15 (1924-26), 9 Murray Terrace, Rubislaw Den South, Aberdeen. Aberdeen.
SAFE MILK SUPPLY. ROBERT COULTER'S
WESTFIELD DAIRY, LIMITED. HEAD OFFICE AND CREAMERY:
61, 71, 73, 77 LEADSIDE ROAD. BRANCHES: 185 Victoria Road, 86 Walker Road, 34 Urquhart Road, 1 South Crown Street, 85 Victoria Road, 2 Cotton Street,
196 Rosemount Place,
AND
Bridge Street, Ballater. 'Phone 354.
Established 1879.
HUTCHISONS' High Grade Attaché and Suit Case Makers, Fancy Leather Goods, Ladies' Handbags, etc.
Models
Prices
Exclusive
Popular
Steel Air-tight Cases and Zinc-lined Chests for Foreign Climates. Repairs receive Prompt and Careful Attention.
11 BACK WYND
94 KING STREET
21 PALMERSTON ROAD
ABERDEEN Telephone 1994 (Private Exchange).
"The Schoolboys' Clothiers." ALEX. SCOTT & CO., 58 St. Nicholas Street. The high quality and low prices of our School Clothing make it excellent value. In no other shop will you find the Boys' Clothing problem so carefully studied. Grammar School Blazers, lined sleeves, double shoulders, sizes I to 10. Size 5, 14,6. Rise and Fall 6d. per size. Shorts to Match, size 5, 8j-, Lined.
Rise and Fall 3d. per size. .special Lot of Boys' Odd Tweed Shorts at 3,41 a pair. All sizes, one price. Three Special Lots of Boys' 3-Garment Suits at
-
19/6, 26,6, 36,-. Grammar Caps, 2,6; Pocket Badges, 2,6; Cap Badges, 6d. Youths' Flannel Trousers, 7/6, 9/6, 11,6. Youths' Trouser Suits, from 35/- to 601-.
Single or llmblc-Breasted. Clearing Line of Youths' Plus-Four Suits, sizes 8 to 10; fit Youths 13 to 17 years, at 35j-. All sizes, one price. I I Shop by Post, we pay Carriage. TELEPHONE 122.
The Ideal Gift for Friends Abroad. WE PACK AND POST FOR YOU.
C1rIELL &
FINGER-
I
MITCHELL
RIBR &
MUIL,
Ltd.,
&CAKE. Aberdeen.
Interesting to F.P.s in Tropical Countries. WE
SUPPLY
Cellular
Aertex
Underclothing.
It wash( s well and does not shrink.
Undervests, Half Sleeves, price 4/6. Trunk Drawers, „ 5/-. When ordering, please send Chest and Waist measures.
W. J. MILNE, Ltd., 249-251 UNION STREET, ABERDEEN. (Opposite Royal Northern Club), 'Phone 1293.
•
&tlexr• Elithen anb ions painters & Decorators 335 "Union street -ElberOeen. • . •• , -
W. KENNAWAY, Ltd. BAKERS and CONFECTIONERS,
5 and 7 Holburn Street. Luncheon and Tea Rooms,
173 Union Street, ABERDEEN
SPECIALTIESWEDDING CAKES.
SHORTBREAD-
ROYAL DEESIDE IN TARTAN TINS, ALSO
A
LARGE
SELECTION
OF
PLAIN AND
FANCY ICED CAKES.
M. GERARD Watchmaker, Jeweller, and 41I
UNION
Silversmith
STREET
(WEST)
ABERDEEN THE
HOUSE
FOR
VALUE
WITH AN UP-TO-DATE STOCK Watches, Clocks, Diamond and Pearl Jewellery, Silver and Electro-Plated Goods, &c., &c. Telephone 447
Jewellery, Watch and Clock Repairs a Speciality
Established 1891
James Angus BOOT MANUFACTURER and REPAIRER, 2 ROSEMOUNT PLACE, $.•
ABERDEEN.
1
OUR SPECIALITIES: Boots of all kinds made to measure. Those having Bunions and Corns should give us a trial. Our own make of BOYS' FOOTWEAR is well known for Durability. REPAIR DEPARTMENT is complete with Modern Machinery for turning out good work. Moderate charges. WORKS
-
ALWAYS
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41-47 and 521 SKENE SQUARE
SOMETHING
NEW
IN
DRESS
D
I
N N E R
FRED WATT, MEN'S] WEAR SPECIALIST.
S U
I
T S
23 Bridge Street, Aberdeen. Telephone No. 2300. Works : Rosebank Place.
WEAR. F R O M 5 G U I N E A S
Telephone 3515.
Telegraphic Address : " Undertake, Aberdeen."
GORDON & WATSON •
FUNERAL UNDERTAKERS AND MOTOR HEARSE PROPRIETORS
12 HOLBURN STREET (Holburn Junction) ABERDEEN
ABERDEEN
ABERDEEN
EDUCATION
AUTHORITY.
GRAMMAR
SCHOOL.
(FOUNDED PREVIOUS TO 1256.)
Rector
-
DAVID MIDDLETON ANDREW, M.A.
T
HE GRAMMAR SCHOOL provides for Boys a complete course of Study, both Elementary and Secondary, Classical and Modern. The School, which is organized in three Departments—Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools—contains excellent laboratories handsomely furnished and equipped, including a Chemical Laboratory, Science Theatre with Physical Laboratory attached, Natural Science Laboratory, Art Room, Gymnasium, Workshop, Botanical Garden, Library, Reading Room, and Museum. Pupils in the Lower School are prepared for the Control Examination of the Education Authority, while the Senior Classes are examined for the Day School Certificate (Higher) and the Leaving Certificate of the Scottish Education Department, passes in the latter examination being recognised as exempting from further examination in the corresponding subjects of the Preliminary Examination for graduation in Arts, Science, Law and Medicine at the Scottish Universities. The situation of the School in the West end of the City is open and healthy. The Class-rooms are large, and the Grounds for Recreation include separate Play-grounds for Juniors and Seniors, Tennis Courts, and a field for Cricket and Football.
ABERDEEN Headmistress
HIGH
SCHOOL
FOR
et
GIRLS.
(ALBYN PLACE.) Miss LUCY L. WARD, B.A. (Loud.)
HE HIGH SCHOOL provides a liberal education for Girls from 5 or 6 to 18 or ro years of age, and aims at fitting them for home life and for professions open to women. The School buildings occupy an excellent and spacious site in the West end of the City. The furnishings and equipment of the School comprise, in addition to numerous Class-rooms fitted up with many modern conveniences for teaching purposes, an Assembly Hall, Gymnasium, Art Rooms, a Lantern Room, a School Library of 2,000 volumes, spacious Cookery and Laundry Rooms, and a suite of Laboratories of the most approved description for the teaching of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. The School is organized in three Departments—Infants, Primary, and Secondary. The Classes in the Infants and Primary divisions are graded in accordance with the requirements of the Scottish Code. The pupils are prepared for the Control Examination of the Education Authority. Pupils in the Secondary Department are prepared for the Day School Certificate (Higher) and the Leaving Certificate of the Scottish Education Department. The subjects of study include—Scripture, English with History and Geography, Mathematics, Classics, Modern Languages, Experimental and Domestic Science, Art, Class Singing, and Physical Exercises. Pupils whose parents desire it are taught Theory and Practice of Music (Pianoforte, Violin, and Organ) in preparation for the Examinations of Trinity College of Music, London, and of the Associated Board of the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music. Advanced pupils are prepared for the Licentiate of the Royal Academy.
T
Information as to Fees, Scholarships, Courses of Study, etc., at the Grammar School and High School for Girls is given in the School Prospectus which may be had free on application to the Director of Education, Education Offices, 22 Union Terrace, or to the Rector or Headmistress respectively.
it
READY TO WEAR For Sport, Holiday and General Outdoor Wear, nothing can beat a—
PLUS-FOUR SUIT men naturally do not want M ANY to pay a big price for what might be called a "knock-about suit "—although you can also have a pair of trousers to match—thus making it suitable for business wear. Come and see the fine selection at—
McGEE'S Hundreds to select from at ALL PRICES A Plus-Four suit is an experiment to many men—they don't know how they will look in it. Come along and try one on and see how it looks— whether the colour and style make it the suit you would like, the suit that "suits" you best, and how it fits you. You can depend on the quality of the material, tailoring, and the smart cut. The lprices are very reasonable, some suits being priced as low as
3-Piece from £3 15s Od 4-Piece from £4 9s 6d As we carry a wide range in graded sizes, several fittings ,to each chest
measurement, you can depend on getting a suit to fit, whatever your height or build.
PATRICK McGEE TAILOR AND OUTFITTER 27-33 BRIDGE STREET, ABERDEEN Telephone 618
Civil Service and Business Institute Principal - J. Strath Wishart, F.Inc.S.T.
BURNETT'S CLASSES The largest and most successful Tutorial Institute in the North for Shorthand, Typing, and all Business Subjects, General Education, University Prelims., Professional and Civil Service Exams. TYPISTS SUPPLIED For Testimonials, Business Circulars, MSS., etc. CROWN TYPEWRITING Gammeter Duplicating-20 to 20,000 copiesOFFICE 111 111 perfect work.
10 NORTH SILVER STREET ABERDEEN ESTAB. 1885.
•
'PliortE 380.
LET THE BOY'S FEET
1-4
CROW AS THEY SHOULD Get them fitted with their Footwear at JOHN A. DUNN'S, where you can see for yourself exactly how the boy's feet rests in the inside of the shoe by the aid of our X-RAY Shoefitting Machine, as illustrated.
//111'...,\\\
-
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-
Agent for "Start-rite"
• Copyright
Footwear.
X - RAY6. \ I / /I\
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Repairs done with either Leather or Gutta-Percha.
LIUL
'Phone 158.
UNION ST., JOHN A. DUNN1 46ABERDEEN. PRINTSD AT THA. ROSIMOUNT PKBS, ABIANDEHN.