Issuu

Vol. XXVI., No. I

NOVEMBER, 1922.

EDUCATIONAL BOOKS JAMES

BISSET

CONTINUES to supply all the Class Books (New or Second-hand) suited for the requirements of the Higher Educational Institutions in the City, at the Lowest Prices. N.B.—Best Value in Students' Note Books.

JAMES G. BISSET, Classical, Mea'ical, and Educational Bookseller,

85 BROAD STREET (Opposite Marischal College).

THE HOME OF FASHION & NOVELTY. I

You can begin and complete your Shopping The best appointed and most centrally situated Warehouse I in Aberdeen.

under one roof at S. & H.'s.

Sangster & Henderson, DRAPERS, MILLINERS, AND COMPLETE HOUSE FURNISHERS.

UNION STREET, ABERDEEN. Telegrams: Telephone 363.

" Sangster Henderson, Aberdeen.

Punctuality is the Politeness of Kings Train the young idea to be punctual by giving it a Reliable Timekeeper. This need not cost much, prices are nearly at pre-war level.

176

17,6

Smart Nickel Case, Lever Movement.

42PJust the thing for a Boy's Christmas Presem

A. & J. SMITH, 191 Union Street, ABERDEEN.

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The

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0 to

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ALEXANDER BOOTH 127 Union Street, ABERDEEN

JAMES FYFE & SON, PAINTERS

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AND •

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Telephone 304.

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LOW'S BOOKSTALLS, 39-50 New Market Gallery, ABERDEEN. Books on All Subjects and at All Prices. 150,000 Volumes in Stock. Catalogaies Issued.

Phone 3332.

EW BOOKS are much more expensive now and it pays to rebind old ones, but the proper time to bind is before the leaves fall out. If this is done in time the life of the book is lengthened at least three times.

WM. JACKSON (Aberdeen) Ltd., BOOKBINDERS, 18 BACK WYND,

ABERDEEN.

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Ladies' and Gent.'s Underwear. The Best is ELLAN-ESS, Made in Hawick.

Ladies' Hose and Gent.'s Socks. The Best is BOTANY WOOL.

Sold at Keen Cash Prices by

WILLIAM DUNCAN, Hosier and Glover, 8 Belmont Street,

Aberdeen.

(Three doors to the right off Union Street.)

Telephone No. 1891.

ARCHIBALD McKELLAR, Family Grocer and Wine Merchant,

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.

For Grammar School Outfits.

For All Kinds of Outfits-Boy Scouts and Cubs, also Girl Guides.

59 St. Nicholas St.

HENDERSON BROS. For Running Pants and Vests, Football Jerseys, Hose, Caps, Belts, etc. 59 St. Nicholas St.

H,ENpsosotg, oi3ojesq5

The new Grammar Blazer and Cap to match made of All Wool Cloth. Jacket Deep Faced, with Curtain and Sleeves lined. The Best Cloth in the Market.

Henderson Brothers, Contractors' Outfitters, 59 St. Nicholas Street. 'Phone 424.

Telephone No. 1624.

Established 1834.

lberdeen."

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Holburn Motor & Cycle Works GEORGE BRUCE & SONS 9 Is Holborn aireet. Aberdeen. General Engineers, Motor and Cycle Agents. Agencies :

Reading Standard, Quadrant, Humber, Edmund and Ivy. (Any other make supplied at liberal discounts.)

We Specialise in Repair Work of all makes of Cars, Motor Odes and Cycles. CHARGES MODERATE.

THE DE LUXE IVY TWO-STROKE.

Ws •f Man Sporting Model.

Works, 1 Alford Lane.

Royal (Dick) Veterinary College EDINBURGH. Principal:

O. CHARNOCK BRADLEY, M.D., D.Sc., M.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.). 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 F. P. MILLIGAN, W.S., Secretary. 'Phone 1624

Get your Photographic Requirements at

D. Souter Allan's Pharmacy 35 HOLBURN STREET (Near Holburn Junction),

Photographic Department. A Large Stock of Cameras, Plates, Films, Papers, and Acoessories.

Dem for Kodak: and Kodak SuMies. may_/4 4)11

411t

Developing and Printing executed by an Expert and delivered in 24 hours.

Boys' and Youths' Overcoats.

V2. Yl.

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Y2. Smart Coat in Rough Serge, Saxe and Rose. To fit boys 4, 5, and 6 years. Prices-39/6, 42/6. Same style in Lovat Tweed, 35/6, 37/6, 39/6. Y3. New Wide-fitting Coat, with whole Back, in a variety of pretty Tweeds. To fit boys 3 to 7 years. Prices-3o/-, 34/6, 39/6 to 45/6. Y4. Coat, as sketch, for boys of 9 and to years, in Fawn and Grey Tweed. Prices-39/6, 41/6, 42/6.

OHN FALCONEWee, FAMOUS FOR A CENTURY &QUARTER FOR QUALITY &

VALUE I

THE ROYAL ARCADE ABERDEEN

Established 1859. FOR

Telephone 1750.

MILK and CREAM, BUTTER, EGGS, TEA CAKES, SCONES, & OATCAKES, TRY .

FINDLAY'S DAIRY, 457 Union Street, and Branches, ABERDEEN; Also, THE SQUARE, CULTS, And 6 EVAN STREET, STONEHAVEN.

Utility, Comfort, and Economy. REDUCTION IN PRICES. A visit to our Extensive Showrooms will reveal a wonderful selection of Labour-saving Firegrates, Cooking and Water-Heating Apparatus, all thoroughly up-to-date, and including our recently improved Boiler Interior Grate, with quick-heating patent rustless Boiler and attached Pot Stand. This is an efficient arrangement produced on artistic lines. Come and see our new Side Lines. A fine display of British and Foreign products, exceptionally handsome and desirable presents at small cost. A pleasant surprise awaits both old friends and newcomers. First-class workmanship and satisfaction guaranteed in all our engagements.

Range, Grate, Wash-House Boiler. and Plaster Repairs promptly executed.

JAMES SCOTT & SON (Aberdeen), Ltd., RANGE, GRATE, AND TILE MERCHANTS, Office and Showrooms-

485 UNION STREET, ABERDEEN. 'Phones 1881, 1882.

Telegrams—.Plaster," Aberdeen.

Winter Overcoats. A. & j. Scott have been fortunate in securing Two Exceptionally Good Lots of. MEN'S OVERCOATS, which they now offer at the Moderate Prices of 45/- and 50/- each. At 45/. in Brown or Grey FLEECY CLOTH and BLUE NAP, Singh. Also in Silver Grey with Velvet Collar. All Sizes.

or Double-Breasted.

At 50/- in Dark Fawn or Dark Grey COVERT COATING, Single Breasted, Raglan or Inset Sleeves. All Sizes. Other Prices of Overcoats in Stock-24/-, 30/-, 42/-, 551-, 63/-, 70/-, 80/SHOP BY POST-WE

PAY CARRIAGE.

STREET, A. & J. SCOTT1 29 GEORGE ABERDEEN. CONTENTS THE RIGHT HON. ROBERT MUNRO, LORD ALNESS • • •• . •• MR. WILLIAM KEITH LEASK .. •• •• • • •• LORD BYRON .. .. PRINCIPAL PATRICK DUN, M.D. .. • • .. • • FIELD-MARSHAL JAMES KEITH •• •• •• •• JAMES MELVIN, LL.D. • . WILLIAM HARKINS AND GEORGE M. PIRIE . • .. •• •• SCHOOL 1ST XI, 1922

Facing page 23 29 ,, 44 Between pp. :14 and 45 •• •• ••

•• .. .. •.

Facing page 45 „ 60

.. ..

. • .. •• •• .. " ROLL OF PUPILS 1795-1919 " . • •• •• •• •• •• THE BYRON STATUE .. .. •• " MAGAZINE " COVER PRIZE COMPETITION • . •• . • •• •• NOTES ABOUT OLD BOYS .. .. .. •• •• .. MR. WILLIAM KEITH LEASK .. • • • • .. .. A PORTRAIT AND A DINNER . • • • •• • • THE SCHOOL IN BYGONE DAYS .. • . • • • • SOME PHASES OF AN ARMY CAREER-III •• • • •• A VISIT TO VENEZUELA AND COLOMBIA • • •• •• TWO WHITES ON A RED SEA ISLAND .. •• •• .. •• A UNIQUE MOTOR-CYCLE TOUR .. • • • • • • • • AN ELEPHANT HUNT IN UGANDA •• •• .. .. .. •• SCHOOLNOTES .. •• •. •• .. THE SCHOOL LIBRARY •• •• THE ATHLETIC SPORTS. SCHOOL CRICKET NOTES .. .. .. •. •• •• .. SCHOOL RUGBY .. .. .. .. .. •• •• SCOUT NOTES THE FORMER PUPILS' CLUB.. •• .. .. .. THE ANNUAL DINNER . • . • .. .. •• •• CLUB NOTES .. •• • • .• .. CLUB CONSULS.. . • •. .• .• MEMBERS RESIDENT ABROAD •• •. .. .. THE SCHOOL WAR MEMORIAL • . • . . • •. •• •• MOTOR SECTION • • • • • SECTION TENNIS CRICKET SECTION, RUGBY SECTION, HOCKEY SECTION, LIST OF NEW MEMBERS

Page 1 2 4 5 29 34 36 38 51 55 56 60 •• •. 62 65 •• 66 •• 67 •• 68 •• • • • •

• •

• • • •

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.• •• •• .• •. • • • 41I

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71 77 79 82 83 84 86 87

W. LUMSDEN & SON, 58 UNION STREET, ABERDEEN.

GROCERIES, PROVISIONS, ::

WINES and SPIRITS,

ALL

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Dine at

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Patronised by the elite of the Town and County. Choice Selection of OLD VINTAGE

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TABLE D'HOTE DINNER FROM 6 P.M. AT 5s. 6d. Tel. No. 2273. Telegrams: Athenaeum.

John Mitchell, Proprietor.

Of Guaranteed Reliability. This Watch Bracelet is a reliable timekeeper. As an adornment for a dainty wrist it needs no recommendation. The price is lowest possible commensurate with timekeeping dependability.

£5 10s. In velvet-lined presentation case. II you cannot call we will send this Watch Bracelet on approval for seven days' trial. Money returned if not satisfied. 15 Jewel Lever Movement in Solid H.M. Gold Case, fitted Solid Gold dainty but strong Expanding Bracelet. Price, £6 6s.

GEO. JAMIESON & SON, Waltham

Watch Depot,

125 UNION STREET, ABERDEEN. ESTABLISHED 1843.

Wm. Cay & Sons funeral Tanbertakers, 415 UNION STREET AND

209 GEORGE STREET,

PRINTING. The

Central Press (1O1-IN MILNI.:),

General Printer, Lithographer, AND

ABERDEEN. Motor Hearses and Cars for Distant Funerals.

Stationer, 61 Belmont Street, ABERDEEN.

Telegrams—" Cay, Aberdeen." 'Phones Nos. 92 and 54.

Telephone No. 809.

ESTABLISHED

1836

NORTHERN ASSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED -

Assets

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ALL CLASSES OF INSURANCE LIFE ASSURANCE BRANCH.

The Company's

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CHIEF OFFICES:

ABERDEEN LONDON

1 Union Terrace. 1 Moorgate, E.C. 2.

Aberdeen Board of Directors. SIR THOMAS BURNETT, BART., Chairman. DAVID M. A. CHALMERS, ESQ.

GARDEN ALEXANDER DUFF, ESQ

FRANCIS JAMES COCHRAN, ESQ.

ALFRED MARTINEAU, ESQ.

GEORGE MILNE COOK, ESQ.

DAVID M. M. MILLIGAN, ESQ.

Manager and Secretary

R. MACKAY, F.F.A.

Aberbeen Grammar School tiictga3ine. Vol. XXVI.

NOVEMBER, 1922.

No. I

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 and 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 in their address.

" Roll of Pupils 1795-1919." The attention of all readers of the Magazine is called to the Circular and Prospectus which accompanies this issue. The compilation of the " Roll of Pupils " has at last been completed, all the matter is now in type, and the final printing awaits only the assurance of the requisite support from subscribers. Full particulars about the " Roll" will be found in the Prospectus. It should be clearly understood that the forthcoming volume is not, as are many school rolls now being published, merely a record of War service : the War is only an episode, albeit a tremendous one, in what our " Roll" records. It contains the names of over 12,000 pupils of the School during the 114 years from 1795 (the year in which, as it happens, Byron started to " thread its classes"), and biographical notes on wellnigh 5,000 of the pupils:who have been taught in the present School buildings. For the greater part of fourteen years the " Roll " has been in preparation. Some may have doubted whether it would ever actually appear, but if orders are now received in sufficient number, it will be in the subscribers' hands early in 1923.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

The Byron Statue. The School and the F.P. Club have never been in so flourishing a condition as they are at present. The School, under Mr. D. G. Miller, is expanding in every way. The number of pupils has now reached the record total of almost 900, and, thanks to the wise guidance and fostering care of the new Rector, the esprit de corps which Dr. Morland Simpson laboured so strenuously to create, is undoubtedly developing and permeating the whole organization. The Club not less surely is growing, not only in membership, but in everything for which it stands. The very successful resuscitation after the War of the London Section is one sign of this ; another is the fine spirit of loyalty and devotion to the School which pervades 'such gatherings as the Annual Dinner. Was not the unpremeditated raising at this year's Dinner of £200 for the Memorial Pavilion within a few minutes very significant ? In the past, whatever scheme the members of the Club have set their hand to, has usually, as a matter of course, been carried to a successful issue. There has, however, been one outstanding exception to this rule, and that is the movement for the erection in front of the School of a statue to its most famous Former Pupil. The very unfortunate delay in the completion of the Byron Statue scheme is probably due in some measure to the fact that it was not started by the Club. Had that been the case, the statue would almost certainly have been erected long ago. The Club, however, has some responsibility in the matter. More than a dozen years ago it undertook to do its best to see the scheme completed, and to this end collected subscriptions amounting to over £100. With the funds eventually in hand the Committee in charge of the movement saw their way to place the order for the statue, and it was through no fault of theirs that it was not finished and erected before the cataclysm of 1914. After the War all costs had to be re-estimated, and it was found that to complete the scheme there would be required a further sum of about £540, arrived at as follows :— £1,000 . . . Liability incurred with Sculptor . 300 Additional sum promised to Sculptor conditionally 80 . . Already spent on administration, etc. . 400 . . . . . Cost of granite pedestal . 120 . Cost of erection and other expenses, say £1,900 Total amount received by Treasurer . In hands of F.P. Club •

£1,210 . 150

1,360 Deficit

£540

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

The facts about the statue itself are these : Dr. Pittendrigh Macgillivray's quarter-size model, a photograph of which is reproduced in this issue of the Magazine, has been enlarged to the required proportions by Mr. A. J. Leslie—a well-known London sculptor, and the figure has been cast in bronze and at present lies in a London foundry awaiting delivery instructions. From the foregoing financial statement it will he seen that almost sufficient funds have been collected to pay the Sculptor and all expenses up to date, but that the cost of the granite pedestal (the order for which has been definitely placed) and of the erection of the statue and other expenses have still to be met. The raising of the required amount is the problem that now faces the School and the Club, for in spite of the fact that the statue movement was started as a city and county one, it is the School and the Club that are chiefly interested in its completion ; and it is they particularly who are faced with the reproach—and it is a reproach—that the scheme to commemorate the School's most famous pupil has hung fire for so many years. In view of the flourishing condition both of the School and the Club, there is no doubt that between them they could raise the necessary balance. The Executive of the Club, however, are faced with a still more pressing problem—the completion of the War Memorial Scheme, and they are anxious that the endeavour to wipe off the Byron Statue deficit should not in any way interfere with the renewed flow of subscriptions for the Memorial Pavilion. There is, however, no objection to an explanation of the present position of the Byron Statue appearing in the Magazine ; or to an invitation to contribute subscriptions being issued to all past and present pupils of the School, and to all others interested in the erection of this magnificent memorial of the poet. In these days, and in view of other calls, large donations are not looked for (but, of course, such would be all the more welcome). Some members of the Club have already contributed, but that was many years ago. If every member will immediately send a small subscription— anything from, say, half-a-crown upwards in the case of junior members—the deficit will be wiped out. The centenary of the poet's death is rapidly approaching. Let us have the statue up and all liabilities discharged before that day arrives. At the first informal dinner for the season of the London Section of the F.P. Club, held on 26th October, the following subscriptions to the Byron Statue Fund were either paid or intimated :— James W. Milne, C.A., Liverpool . . . John Robertson, Northern Assurance Co., Ltd.

•

£5 5 0 5 5 0

i Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

£.5 0 0 J. M. Bulloch, LL.D. . 1 1 0 R. Haldane Cook, M.D. 1 1 0 M.D. James A. Davidson, 0 10 6 • John M. Rattray, M.D.. As one result of a magnificent reproduction of the Statue appearing in The Graphic of 29th July last, a subscription of £1, accompanied by an enthusiastic letter, was received from Mr. Edgar Lackland Taylor, Vice-President, Boatmen's Bank, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. All subscriptions from members of the Club should be sent to the Secretary, Mr. THEODORE WATT, THE ROSEMOUNT PRESS, ABERDEEN, who has recently been appointed Joint Secretary of the Byron Statue Fund. •

•

" Magazine " Cover Prize Competition. The suggestion has frequently been made that a new design for the front cover of the Magazine should be obtained, and the Executive of the F.P. Club has authorized the Magazine Committee to announce a Prize Competition and to invite any present or former pupil of the School to submit one or more designs. It is essential that the words "Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine" be a prominent feature. A jury of experts, consisting of Dr. William Kelly, A.R.S.A., Mr. Harry Townend, and Mr. James Cromar Watt, will carefully examine the designs submitted and recommend the one which they consider to be the most meritorious for the final approval of the Magazine Committee. The Prize will be a certificate of Life Membership of the F.P. Club, or, in the event of the successful competitor being already a Life Member, the amount of the subscription for Life Membership, namely £5. 5s. In order that Former Pupils residing abroad may have the opportunity of competing, the last day for sending in designs has been fixed for 31st May, 1923. All designs should be sent in a sealed envelope addressed to Mr. THEODORE WATT, THE ROSEMOUNT PRESS, ABERDEEN, and marked on the outside " A.G.S. Magazine Competition." Inside the sealed envelope should be another, containing the competitor's full name and address. This latter envelope will be opened only after the final award has been made. Unsuccessful designs will be returned if stamps are enclosed to cover the cost of postage. It is intended that the result of the Competition be announced in the June, 1923, issue of the Magazine, and the successful design adopted in the following issue.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine'.

• „• It is requested that the Editor he 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 LORD JUSTICE CLERK OF SCOTLAND. The Right Hon. Robert Munro* (1884-85), K.C., LL.D., Secretary for Scotland from 1916, and M.P. for Roxburgh and Selkirk in the Parliament of 1918-22, was, in October, appointed Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland. The post is the second highest in the Scottish Judiciary, and carries a salary of £4,800. Writing about the appointment, the London correspondent of the Aberdeen Free Press said that this was regarded with conflicting feelings by Mr. Munro's numerous friends. " On the one hand, they congratulate him on his elevation to a distinguished place on the Bench ; on the other hand, they sincerely regret his departure from the Scottish Office. If he were a rich man I am sure he would have remained in political life, but a salary of £2,000 is scarcely sufficient in these days to maintain a Minister in a position worthy of Cabinet rank. Moreover, office in Government is insecure, and after being Secretary for Scotland Mr. Munro could not have returned to the Bar and practised before judges whom he had appointed. It is the general testimony that he has been one of the ablest and most popular Secretaries who have administered Scottish affairs. His zeal in the interests of his country, his tact and industry, his courtesy to members of all parties have been conspicuous, and he has gained a high Parliamentary reputation by his skill in piloting bills and by his lucidity as a speaker. Those who know Mr. Munro predict that he will make a great judge. What is a loss to the House of Commons will be a gain to the Court of Session." On 19th October Mr. Munro took his seat in the Court of Session as President of the Second Division and Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland. The installation ceremony took place in the First Division Court, and created so much interest that the accommodation was quite inadequate. The Lord President presided, and was accompanied by all the judges with the exception of one, who was indisposed. The Lord President received the letter under His Majesty's sign manual • Indioates Member of Former Pupils Club.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

appointing Mr. Munro to be President of the Second Division and one of the Senators of the College of Justice. His Lordship directed that it should be read with all due loyalty and respect, and recorded. Mr. Edwin Adam, K.C., Clerk of Session, thereupon read the King's letter, the audience meanwhile standing. Mr. Munro, who was in Court dress, then handed to the Lord President his commission, under the Seal kept in Scotland in place of the Great Seal, appointing him to be Lord Justice Clerk. This having been recorded, the Lord President invited the Lord Probationer to accompany Lord Morison to his Court to hear counsel debate two cases, and thereafter to report his opinion thereon to the First Division. The Lord Probationer, having heard counsel in the Outer House, returned to the Division and gave his opinion on the cases, which related to disputes between a company and one of its directors. He then heard counsel in the Division in a reclaiming note, in which the question was whether the case was to proceed by way of proof or jury trial.. Having pronounced his opinion, the Lord Probationer was informed by the Lord President that he had passed his trials to the entire satisfaction of the Judges of that Division. The Lord President then administered the three oaths—the oath of allegiance, the official oath of service in the office of Justice-Clerk, and the judicial oath in the office of judge, to do right to all manner of people without fear or favour, affection or ill-will. These oaths having been signed, the new Judge was robed and invited to ascend the Bench with the title of Lord Alness. The new Judge shook hands with his brethren, and bowing to the Court, ended the proceedings. The new Lord Justice Clerk has chosen as his judicial title the name of the parish in Ross-shire in which he was born, and in which his father was for many years Free Church minister. The word " Lord " prefixed to the names or titles of the Scottish Judges is strictly . an official honour. An Order in Council in 1905, however, authorized the retention of the title for life irrespective of retirement, and the style " Lady " is enjoyed by the wife. Cecil Hay Aiken* (1911-14) is now in the service of the Assam Saw Mills & Timber Co., Ltd., Murkong Selek, North East Frontier, Assam. The " Assam Saws " (as the company is known by in the district) consists of five saw mills, one of these being a veneer mill, at which Aiken is stationed. Plywood-making in India is yet in its infancy, there being only two other veneer mills in addition to the one he is in. " The European staff of this mill," he writes, " numbers five—two members of the F.P. Club, SAMUEL J. HALLY* and myself, one ' Gordonian,' one Dumfriesshire man, and one Englishman. I do not know of another place with a population of

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

five Europeans and three of them from the same town. I think it must constitute a 'record.' Murkong Selek is situated on the north bank of Bramaputra River, about midway between Dibrugarh and Sadiya, and quite close to the first range of ' foothills ' of the Himalayas. The starting point for the Abor Expedition is only eight miles from here. These people are quite quiet now, and during the cold season batches numbering about 50 come down from the hills and work for us, clearing jungle, cutting firewood, cane, etc., and when the hot season starts, they go back to their villages again. There is a river steamer service—one steamer weekly— runs between Dibrugarh and Sadiya, a distance of about 80 miles, which we have to depend on for bringing all our supplies from Dibrugarh. Our nearest ' neighbours '—the manager and assistant of one of our other mills—are 20 miles away, and one has to go there by motor launch, roads being non est in this part of the world." Robert Aitken* (1897-1903) has been appointed Assistant Resident Engineer of the City and South London Railway Enlargement. He was formerly engaged as a civil engineer at Athens. Allan Cunningham Anderson* (1907-12), who is in the service of the Royal Bank of Canada, was transferred in the spring of this year from Winnipeg to Havana, Cuba. He remarked at the time that it was rather a sudden jump from 15° below zero to 80° in the shade. He says that there are lots of Scots in Havana, and several Aberdonians. Up to the time of writing he had met no F.P.s there. John James Hall Anderson* (1910-15), who graduated M.B., Ch.B. last year, is now in medical practice at Hulme End, Staffs. Albert John Angus* (1919-20) has entered the service of the North of Scotland and Town and County Bank Ltd. at Banchory. Claud Alexander Barron* (1880- 87), C.S.I., C.I.E., Chief Commissioner, Delhi, was in June made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order for his services in connexion with the recent visit of the Prince of Wales to India. Alexander Thomson Begg* (1909-10), who was formerly in the service of the Northern Assurance Co., Ltd. in India, is now with the firm of Messrs. L. Moore & Co., Ltd., fire loss adjusters, whose head office is at Shanghai, China. William Stephen Benton* (1904-11), who entered the service of the Indian State Railways in 1919, is now Assistant Executive Engineer on the Oudh & Rohilkhand State Railway, Shahjahanpur, United Provinces. In a recent letter he says that he likes the work there very much. He has about 200 miles of railway line to look after, in addition to buildings,

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

etc., and new works. This keeps him pretty well occupied, especially in the summer time, when railway bridges have to be carefully watched in case of floods. The station he is in is fairly small, but as he goes out on inspection for three or four days each week, he does not feel so confined as the people who have to stay there throughout the year. The only F.P.s he has met since he has been in India are WILLIAM R. TENNANT, of the Indian Civil Service, who was at School at the same time as himself, and FRED. W. GALLOWAY, who was stationed at Shahjahanpur as Superintendent of Police for a short time, and who has since retired from the Indian Police. Benton is looking forward to receiving his first furlough after another year or so. James Anderson Bower* (1882-95), who has been in Assam since 1900, is now manager of the Maijan Tea Estate, Dibrugarh. Eric William Harcourt Brander* (1894-1901), M.A., LL.B., was admitted a member of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen last June. Hector Brodie* (1906-17) has recently become a member of the F.P. Club. He is at present manager of the Kilimara Coffee Plantation, Nyeri, Kenya Colony. Henry Ross Brodie* (1906-12), brother of the foregoing, is also in Kenya Colony. After demobilization he joined the British East Africa Disabled Officers' Colony, Ltd., at Kericho, and is now stationed at Lumbwa. Thomas Cruickshank Bruce* (1889-92), M.A., is manager of the New Primrose Mine, Germiston, Transvaal. In a letter received not long ago he apologizes for writing in pencil, saying, " I completely lost the use of my right arm in the recent revolution." Arthur Beresford Byres* (1899-1910), who was formerly in the service of a rubber company in Travancore, Southern India, has now permanently returned to this country and is resident at Takeley, Essex. . Andrew Campbell* (1902-04), M.B., who served in the War in the Indian Medical Service, is now resident in Johannesburg. Donald Cattanach (1882-83), who has been for many years in the service of Messrs. John Blaikie & Sons, Ltd., Aberdeen, has recently been appointed an inspector of agents at the Aberdeen Branch of the Scottish Union and National Insurance Co. Rector of the Scots College, Rome. William Robert Clapperton* (1899-1901), M.A. (Durham), Ph.D. and D.D. (Rome), has been appointed Rector of the Scots College of the Gregorian University, Rome. After

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graduating B.A. at Durham, he entered the Scots College in 1907, was ordained Priest in 1913, and was appointed ViceRector of the College in 1914. In 1920 he was appointed Private Chamberlain to the Pope, an office that carries with it the title " Monsignor." The Scots College in Rome was founded in 1600 by a bull of Pope Clement VIII. William Robertson Clark* (1907-11), who is an engineer on the Gold Coast Railways, spent the earlier part of this year at home on holiday, and on returning to West Africa in July was instructed to go to Obuasi, to take over what is termed " The Top Section." His district is 118 miles long, and goes right through the Ashanti country. Coomassie, the capital of Ashanti, and the seat of many battles during the Ashanti War, is on his section. He says it is a delightful town, and he can always get a game of tennis on the Gold Coast Regiment's court. The climate at Obuasi is much cooler than near the coast, and he can describe it only as being similar to nice summer weather at home without any sudden variations. Obuasi is the centre of a gold-mining district, the mines being owned by the Ashanti Goldmining Corporation. " We are making a golf course here," he says, " at the rate of one hole per week. Six holes are finished, so I shall soon be able to get a game. Tennis I play almost every evening on concrete courts, and thus keep fit and smiling. I have any amount of work, and have often to visit different parts of my section in my inspection coach when I am staying a night or two. This caravanning life is very pleasant to begin with, but soon becomes tedious. . . . I am afraid I am unable to describe the place. It is rather similar to any other on the Coast. Pretty, with plenty of green grass, trees, and hills, is about as far as I can get. Plenty of royal palms, mango, guava, and flamboyant trees abound. I have not seen a live snake or scorpion yet. There are no wild animals, so you can see that life is as safe here as at home." John Middleton Clyne (1902-09), who served with the London Regiment during the War and was awarded the Military Cross, is now at Blantyre, Nyasaland. A Member of the New Parliament. Sir John Collie* (1873-76), C.M.G., M.D., is, we believe, the only F.P. who is a Member of the Parliament that has just been elected. He stood as a National Liberal in the Partick Division of Glasgow and was returned with a majority over his Liberal opponent of 5,472. He was formerly Director of Medical Services at the Ministry of Pensions, and while engaged as a consulting physician in London, is medical examiner to the London County Council and Chief Medical Officer of the Metropolitan Water Board. In the last Par-

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liament there were two F.P.s : Sir WILLIAM WATSON CHEYNE,* Bart., who was one of the three representatives of the Scottish Universities, and did not seek re-election ; and the Rt. Hon. ROBERT MUNRO, who represented Roxburgh and Selkirk. Charles Grant Cook* (1894-99), who was an operating engineer in the service of the Mexican Light & Power Co., . Ltd., Mexico City, immediately before the War, has recently left for Mexico to re-enter the service of this company. Alfred Augustus Cooper (1879-83), M.A., formerly minister of the U.F. High Church, Inverness, has been appointed to the charge of an English Presbyterian Church near Oxford. Arthur Courage* (1905-12) is now a departmental manager in the Hayes Cocoa Co., London. David Courage* (1903-11) has since demobilization been engaged in pedigree-stock-breeding in Essex and Sussex, and latterly in Northumberland. George Frederick Cox (1899-1906), M.A., B.D., who from 1919 was assistant minister in St. Andrew's Parish Church, Edinburgh, was recently elected minister of Harray in Orkney. Pre-War Wireless." Ernest Denny Logie Danson* (1892-94), M.A., D.D., Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak, has recently been in Aberdeen. At a public ceremony he gave some delightful reminiscences of his schooldays here. He recalled the time when he was growing up, when what to a brother and himself was a very interesting institution, a young ladies' academy, was started in Albury Road. Well did he remember how on Sunday afternoons the charming young ladies of the academy would come to tea at his father's house in Bon-Accord Crescent. The ladies were very demure, and so were the future Bishop and his brother. There was a flat roof to the house in BonAccord Crescent—such a roof as people would have looked for wireless on in wartime—and it was a very convenient coign of vantage to signal from 19 Bon-Accord Crescent to 44 Albury Rckad. Sister Harriet was in charge of these charming ladies of the academy, and she wondered how it was that the two Danson boys invariably met the young ladies of the academy on their walk—whether in the Duthie Park or Queen's Road, it did not matter—they always met. She did not know that a towel hung from a window at 44 Albury Road meant " Duthie Park to-morrow," and that a pair of stockings meant "Queen's Road," and so on. The Right Reverend Bishop concluded by remarking, amid laughter, that he had indeed very intimate and pleasant recollections of the academy. And now he has been appointed a Club Consul! •

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Andrew John Davidson* (1916-21) sailed from Liverpool in September, bound for California, where he intends to take up fruit-farming. Douglas J. Davidson* (1891-1902), who entered the service of the Rosehaugh Tea and Rubber Co. in 1911, is now manager of the Godahena Estate, Tebuwana, where he succeeded another F.P., JOHN Ross* (1898-1906). Gordon Moncrieff Dean* (1909-18) graduated B.A. at Cambridge in June, being placed in the First Class of the Science Tripos, Part I. Alan Alexander Duffus* (1900-11), M.B., D.P.H., has recently gone to Singapore, where he has been appointed Assistant Medical Officer of Health. Robert Weyer Dunlap* (1896-97), M.D. (Johns Hopkins University), who is a medical missionary in Chefoo, Shantung Province, China, writes to say that by an odd coincidence, while on a recent voyage from Yokohama to Seattle, he met WILLIAM R. MYERS* (1895-99), whom he last met as a classfellow at the Grammar School 25 years ago. They have both been in China for a considerable number of years. Myers joined the Chinese Maritime Customs in 1904, being latterly stationed at Harbin, North Manchuria, where he has been Acting Deputy Commissioner. Alexander Wishart Edward* (1911-17) has recently gone out to Grand Junction, Colorado, U.S.A. David Edwards* (1903-1909), M.A., LL.B., last year obtained an administrative and magisterial appointment in the Colonial Civil Service. He is at present Assistant Resident Commissioner at Nairobi, Kenya Colony. James Fiddes* (1904-14), who received a commission in the Indian Army from Sandhurst in 1917, has recently resigned and come home. Finlay William Nugent Finlayson* (1902-09), .who is in the Reports and Intelligence Dept. of the Eloff Street Branch, Johannesburg, of the Standard Bank of South Africa, Ltd., has been appointed Lecturer in Political Economy in the University of Johannesburg. Robert Ian Mackay Finlayson* (1908-11), who served as an apprentice engineer with Messrs. William McKinnon and Co., Ltd., Aberdeen, has received an appointment as assistant engineer on the Sealkotee Tea Estate, Chabua, Upper Assam. He writes that on his arrival at Calcutta he received a proper " School" welcome from DAVID INGLIS DUFF* (1915-16), through whose kindness he spent a most pleasant time during his stay in Calcutta, before proceeding to Assam. He looks forward to the time when it will be possible to arrange for a re-union of the F.P.s in that part of the world.

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James Sutherland Balkwill Forbes* (1903-10), M.A., M.B., Captain, R.A.M.C., is Senior Medical Officer at Khormaksar, Aden, Arabia. Frederic W. Galloway (1893-97), who was appointed to the Indian Police in 1901, has retired from that service and is practising as a barrister in London. He was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1915. Alexander McRobbie Gauld* (1893-96) has re-started in business on his own account as a solicitor in Aberdeen. Frederick Wernham Gerrard* (1905- 06), C.I.E., who joined the Indian Police Service in 1908, and in the later stage of the War was Deputy Commissioner of Police at Basra, has lately been gazetted Deputy Inspector-General of Police for Iraq. He is resident at Baghdad. Robert Niven Gilchrist* (1901-05), M.A., Principal and Professor of Political Economy and Political Philosophy, Krishnagar College, Bengal, has added to his growing list of books one entitled " Principles of Political Science." The book has been written primarily for students of Indian universities. William Smith Gill* (1876-79), C.B., has been appointed Honorary Colonel of the 51st Highland Divisional Engineers as from 22nd July last. He is Chairman of the Territorial Force Association of the County of the City of Aberdeen. Gordon Couper Grant* (1904-17), who graduated B.Sc. in Forestry at Aberdeen University this year, has recently gone to Toronto to take a course in forestry at the University there. John Grant* (1906-12), M.A., chartered accountant, Aberdeen, has been appointed Lecturer in Book-keeping in the North of Scotland College of Agriculture. John Alexander Greig* (1912-17), who went to Ceylon in 1919, is now at Naranghena, Deltota. George Jamieson Hall* (1915-18) is engaged in sheeprearing in Queensland, and since last year has been actingoverseer on Cooinda Station, Winton, North Queensland. David Menzies Harvey (1915-17) has secured the Diploma in Engineering Science of the Royal Technical College, Glasgow. He took the B.Sc. in Engineering at Glasgow University in the spring of this year. Robert John Harvey-Gibson* (1872-76), C.B.E., M.A., D.Sc., who resigned from the professorship of Botany in the University of Liverpool on 31st December, 1919, has had the title of r` Professor Emeritus " conferred on him by that University. John Hay* (1913-19), who is in the service of Messrs. Williamson, Balfour & Co. of Valparaiso, reports that the

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delivery of his June copy of the Magazine was unduly delayed owing to a snowstorm in the Andes. His patience was severely taxed. Robert Cecil Jackson* (1905-11 and 1914-15) is now in the service of Messrs. Gordon, Grant & Co., Ltd., Port of Spain, Trinidad. Alexander Pringle Jameson (1892-1904), D.Sc., has received an appointment in the Zoology Department of the University of Washington, Seattle, U.S.A. Prior to this he was at Shillong, Assam, investigating the silk-worm disease. Joseph Brewer Jobberns* (1880-86), rector of the Episcopalian Church, Carnoustie, from 1898, has accepted the rectorship of St. Mary Magdalene's Episcopalian Church, Dundee. He has been Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, Dundee, since 1918. Alexander Gordon Johnstone (1888-95), who was formerly an excise officer in Lancashire, is now an American Shoe Manufacturers' Agent at 106 Strand, London. Charles H. M. Johnstone (1890-99) is a commission agent in London and Vienna. George Lawrence (1901-03), who was formerly agent of the North of Scotland and Town and County Bank at Lossiemouth, has been promoted to be agent at the Cluny Square Branch, Buckie. Robert Daniel Lawrence* (1900-09), M.A., M.D., is now in practice at 9 Via Tornabuoni, Florence, Italy, and writes that he will always be pleased to see any F.P.s that chance to pass that way. George Alexander Ledingham* (1894-1905) has relinquished the post of manager in London to Messrs. John M. Henderson & Co., engineers and steel founders, Aberdeen, and has been appointed managing director of Messrs. Philip Morris & Co., Ltd., cigar importers and cigarette manufacturers, London. George Seton Simpson Leith* (1903-11) is now manager to Messrs. Landale & Clark, Ltd., jute merchants, Serajgunge, E.B. Railway, Bengal. William Norman Leslie* (1892-95), M.A., B.L., who has just been appointed Club Consul for the Punjab, writes that the great majority of Britishers in that Province are• Government officials, but whether Government or otherwise, he will always be at the service of F.P.s to do what he can to further their interests. " There are several new industrial concerns opening up, and trade is slowly but surely returning to the normal. Political agitation is still somewhat rife, but that will probably die a natural death." George Elder Levie* (1884-88), C.A., is one of the collaborators in the compilation of the "Accountant's

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Dictionary," a new cyclopxdic work of over 1,000 quarto pages. Ian McBain* (1904-14) has been admitted a member of the Society of Accountants in Aberdeen. David Macbeth* (1884-85), who was engaged in engineering at Cawnpore, India, from 1907, has retired, and now resides in this country. He has recently become a Life Member of the Club. Herbert Norman Macbeth* (1882-85) was in June last elected President of the Scottish Music Merchants' Association. William Andrew Mackenzie (1887), Treasurer-General of the Save the Children Fund International Union at Geneva, has received from the Pope the Order of Knighthood of St. Gregory the Great. When the growth of the Save the Children Fund movement in the latter part of 1919 gave birth to the International Union, Mr. Mackenzie was appointed Cardinal Bourne's delegate to its council, which, like the Save the Children Fund itself, represents all sections and all parties, and in January, 1920, he was appointed Treasurer-General. He is not less widely known as the author of the students' song, " Shon Campbell." Robert Gordon M`Kerron (1907-13), M.A., has been awarded the Fullerton, Moir and Gray Scholarship in Classics at Aberdeen University. Alfred Scott Mackie* (1905- 09), M.B., has returned from Lamu, Kenya Coast Protectorate, and is resident in Bedford. John MacMurray (1902-04) has been elected to a Fellowship as classical tutor in philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford. He won the Snell Exhibition in 1912, graduated M.A. at Glasgow in 1914, served in the War from September, 1914, to June, 1919, first as a private in the R.A.M.C., and later with a commission in the Cameron Highlanders, being awarded the M.C. in April, 1918 ; was appointed Lecturer in Philosophy in the University of Manchester in 1919, and Professor of Philosophy in the University of the Witwaterrand, Johannesburg, last year. He returns to Oxford in December. Alexander Gunn Macneill* (1905- 09), who was Assistant Director of Works, Irrigation " Projects," Eastern Delta Division, Lairo, in the Egyptian Government Service, is now engaged at Gebel Aulia Dam, Khartoum, Sudan. Thomas Menzies* (1905-10), M. B., Captain, R.A.M.C., has returned from India, and has been stationed at the Military Hospital, Crowborough, Sussex. Louis Francis Merrylees* (1896-1905) is in the service of the Northern Construction Co. & J. W. Stewart, Vancouver, British Columbia.

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Noel W. J. Miller* (1906-11) entered the business of Messrs. James Miller & Co., Ltd., Port of Spain, Trinidad, in October, 1919, and is now one of the directors of the company. James Stewart Macgregor Mitchell* (1911-15) is assistant manager on the Nadna Tea Estate, Dikom, of the Upper Assam Tea Co., Ltd. Thomas Alexander Mitchell (1873-76), Captain, IndoChina Steam Navigation Co., retired last spring, after 30 years' service with this company, including 23 years in command. For the past 15 years, almost without intermission, he was in command of the s.s. " Fooksang." He knows the run from India to Japan probably better than any skipper at sea, and is a well-known figure in every port between these two countries. Captain Mitchell first went to China in the '70s as an apprentice in well-known tea " Clippers," and he became acquainted with Hongkong and Shanghai as they were 45 years ago. For many years he continued his career in the old sailing ships, with occasional voyages in the steamers of the Aberdeen White Star Line, when that company first started steam. He commenced his service with the Indo-China Company in August, 1891, as Third Officer, joining the s.s. " Esang " on her maiden trip to the East. From that time on he gradually rose in the service, and at the end of May, 1899, took command of the s.s. " Fausang." During the whole of his 23 years in command of Indo-China boats, Captain Mitchell never had a single casualty. He has come back to live in Aberdeen. Thomas S. Muir* (1886-87), who is Geography Master in the Royal High School, Edinburgh, has recently become a member of the F.P. Club. He is the author of " Europe—A Regional Geography," published this year, and also of numerous articles that have appeared in newspapers and magazines dealing mostly with geographical and mountaineering subjects. He was the founder of the Scottish Ski Club in 1907. Lawrence Ogilvie* (1907-16), M.A., B.Sc., is studying at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is doing research in Plant Pathology at the Botany School. David A. Pope* (1881-88), who is engaged in farming at Hope Farm, Hayter, Alberta, writes that if any member of the F.P. Club should at any time think of visiting or settling in " Sunny Alberta " or Western Saskatchewan, he would be very glad to give any information as to the farming possibilities and prospects of that part of the West. He goes in for cattle-breeding, and has on his farm a herd of some 40 Aberdeen-Angus, both pure bred and grade. James Ogilvy Rae* (1912-21) is now resident in Sutton, Surrey.

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Edward Birnie Reid* (1902-13) has been admitted a member of the Society of Accountants in Aberdeen. Leslie Scott Reid (1902-05), who served in the War as an officer in the 5th Battalion Gordon Highlanders (T.F.), is now engaged in planting on Ernan Estate, Dehiowita, Ceylon. William George Robb (1908-12) is in the Marine Department, S.A. Des Huileries du Congo Belge, Kinshasa, Belgian Congo. Douglas Graeme Robertson* (1904-15), who passed into the Indian Army in 1917 from the Cadet College, Wellington, India, is now on the Telok Buloh Estate, Utan Melintang, Lower Perak. William George Robertson* (1884-90), M.A., B.D., Principal and Professor of English Literature, Gujarat College, Ahmedabad, India, has had his portrait painted and presented to the College as a tribute to his untiring zeal, indefatigable energy, and efficient administration. Since his arrival in India 12,000 students have passed through his hands. Simon Douglas Ross* (1914-19), a letter from whom appears on another page, is now manager of Kyanambaka Coffee Estate, Masindi, Uganda, Kenya Colony. Brian Ross-Hurst (1914-16), who received a commission in the 55th Coke's Rifles, Frontier Force, Indian Army, in 1917, has been transferred to the 54th Sikhs, and is mainly engaged in recruiting. He has been retained in spite of the Reduction Scheme owing to his proficiency in the native language. William James O'Brien Ross-Hurst (1912-13), Captain, 58th Vaughan's Rifles, Frontier Force, has resigned his commission in the Indian Army under the Reduction Scheme. Frederic Dudley Ross-Keyt* (1901-07 and 1911-12), M.B., is now settled in practice at Saltburn, North Riding, Yorks. William Kelman Scott* (1899-1902), who was formerly a sorting collector and telegraphist in Aberdeen Post Office, is now a 3rd class clerk in the Post Office Engineering Department, London. James Shepherd* (1859-64), M.A., M.D., D.D., K.I.H.M., has recently reached his jubilee as a missionary in India of the United Free Church of Scotland. He was appointed a missionary of the United Presbyterian Church to Rajputana • in 1872. Leaving Scotland in the following year, he spent three years at Deoli, where he learned the Hindi language, and was then chosen by the Mission Council to begin work in Udaipur, the modern capital of Mewar. There Dr. Shepherd did splendid work, and established a Bhil Boys' Home, which he carried on for many years at his own cost and that of private friends.

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William Douglas Simpson* (1901-13), M.A., F.S.A., Lecturer in British History, University of Aberdeen, has recently added to his lengthening list of publications an important paper in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on " The Architectural History of Huntly Castle." It is a minute and exhaustive study of the succession of buildings which have occupied this famous site from the time of William the Lion. William Sinclair* (1870-75), who has been a planter in Ceylon since 1877, being from 1888 at Rangalla Estate, has recently retired, and is now resident in London. He served as Rural Member of the Ceylon Legislative Council in 1913-14. Sir Andrew Skeen* (1880-86), K.C.I.E., C.B., C.M.G., Major-General, commanding at Peshawar, North-West Frontier, India, has accepted office as one of the Honorary VicePresidents of the F.P. Club. He was recently fired at by some disaffected tribesmen while proceeding from Peshawar to Oir escorted by local levies. Fortunately the shot missed its mark. Sydney H. Smith* (1881-87) has recently become Chief Engineer of the Kent Cement Works, a new concern under the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers. Ian Robert Spark* (1912-14), M.B., is now in practice at Nottingham. John Stewart* (1898-1905), M.A., who was appointed a missionary of the United Free Church of Scotland in Manchuria in 1914, has since then been engaged in Y.M.C.A. work amongst Chinese students, chiefly at Moukden. He is at present home on furlough, and expects to return to China in June of next year. He has seized the opportunity while in Aberdeen to become a member of the F.P. Club. William Bethune Stott* (1903-14), who is a graduate in medicine of Edinburgh University and is now at Cambridge, was playing in the Oxford and Cambridge Team which had an easy win in the match at Spa in August between British and Belgian Universities for the Lawn Tennis Challenge Cup. Arthur William Strachan* (1893-1901), formerly Captain in the Supply & Transport, Indian Army, is now in the Northern Shan States, Burma. Godfrey McTaggart Symmers* (1875-76), who was for many years in the service of the British India Steam Navigation Co., Ltd., as officer and commander, and who commanded the B.I. steamer " Umaria" when she was attacked and sunk by a hostile submarine off the Italian coast on 26th May, 1917, has been permanently affected by his experiences on that day, and has now retired. Some

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account of these experiences appears in " Merchant Adventurers 1914-1918," published in 1920 by Messrs. A. & C. Black, Ltd. Alexander Ritchie Taylor* (1899-1902), representative in the North of Scotland for Messrs. Kalamazoo, Ltd., Birmingham, is now resident in Aberdeen. John Cameron Taylor* (1904-06), who is in the service of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., is at present home on holiday. He has latterly been stationed at Hankow, but is next year returning to Hongkong, where he was some years ago, and where he is to be Club Consul. He reports that at an inter-port rugby match at Hankow some time ago between Shanghai and Hankow there were at least six F.P.s present, and three—WILLIAM ELDER SMITH* (1904-09), GEORGE ALSTON BUYERS* (1906-08), and TAYLOR himself—took part in the match. Robert Ross Tennant* (1910-13), who was in the service of the Pepeekeo Sugar Co., Hawaii, returned to Aberdeen last year. George Alexander Thomson* (1903-06) is in the service of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China, at its Bombay branch. Ian Stewart Thomson* (1903-09), M.A., M.B., is now on the staff of the Atkinson-Morley Convalescent Hospital, Copse Hill, Wimbledon. Peter Thomson (1862-63), M.A., D.D., Senior Minister of Dunning Parish Church, Perthshire, now residing in Crieff, has just celebrated his ministerial jubilee. He retired from the active duties of the pastorate twelve years ago. I)r. Thomson is the father of Mr. John Mackay Thomson, the former Rector of the School. Alexander Moir Walker* (1913-18) is in the service of Messrs. Harrisons & Crosfield, Ltd., on an estate in Sumatra. Charles Addington Peel Walker* (1894-1902), who is in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company at Grouard, Alberta, says in a recent letter :—" I was very much surprised to see walk into my office an old Grammar boy, who was no other than HARRY JOHNSTONE, one of the Johnstones of Albyn Place. He is working for the P. Burns Co. in Edmonton. Has promised to try and stay a day or two with me the next time he comes up. . . . The weather out here has been extremely hot and dry, and consequently the crops have suffered, and the country in general is sort of depressed. Of course we cannot have good times always, but I sincerely hope these dark days will soon be over and things get back to normal once more." James Maurice Walker (1909-12), who was engaged in rubber planting in the Straits Settlements from 1915 to

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1920, has returned to Aberdeen, and is a partner in the business of Messrs. J. Walker & Son, umbrella makers. James Strachan Walker* (1913-17), who graduated M.B. at Aberdeen in the spring of this year, has been acting as House Surgeon in Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, London. John Marcellino Walker (1900-02) is now engaged in farming in Conwango Valley, New York. He went to the States from Portugal in 1903. Douglas Watson* (1899-1902) is now a traveller with Messrs. John Skelton & Son, hosiery manufacturers, Norwich. William Young* (1889-94), who went to Trinidad in 1901, and was latterly in business as a wholesale and retail dealer in general merchandise in San Fernando, is now a partner in Messrs. Preston, Young & Co., Finsbury Pavement House, London. At the Summer Graduation of Aberdeen University degrees were conferred on the following F.P.s :—' Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)— Robert John Harvey-Gibson* (1872-76), C.B.E., M.A., Beckallans, Grasmere, Westmorland. Master of Surgery (Ch.M.)— Alexander Victor Reid Don* (1913-15), M.B., Ch.B., Aberdeen. Master of Arts (M.A.)— James Lawson Mowat* (1915-16), with First Class Honours in Modern Languages and Literature. James Frederick Walker (1902-14), with Second Class Honours in English (Literature and Language). Alexander Cruickshank* (1915-19). George Donald Mann* (1914-19). Robert Bertram Williamson* (1906-18). Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (B.Sc.Agr.)— George Smith Bruce* (1912-14). John Milne Rennie* (1916-19). Bachelor of Science in Forestry (B.Sc.For.)— Andrew Wilson Adam (1909-17). John Aitken* (1917-19). Gordon Couper Grant* (1904-17). Diploma in Agriculture— Ernest Graeme Robertson (1910-19).

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Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.)— Alexander Robertson Gray* (1910-16), M.A. Bachelor of Medicine (M.B.) and Bachelor of Surgery (Ch.B.)— William Litster Hector* (1913-17) with First Class Honours, completing final examination with distinction. Redvers Nowell Ironside* (1907-17), with First Class Honours, completing final examination with much distinction. Donald Campbell* (1908-17). ' Alexander Cruickshank* (1911-17). Robert James Duthie* (1911-17). Norman Hector Leslie (1911-14). Alexander Adam McIntosh Nicol* (1915-17). William John O'Connor* (1909-17). Diploma in Public Health (D.P.H.)— Alan Alexander Duffus* (1900-11), M.B., Ch.B.

Patrol Leader Marr's Return. Owing to unusually adverse weather conditions and other causes, the " Quest " has been prevented from fulfilling all the hopes which her many friends had formed of her ; but her crew, at any rate, have emerged from their trial with no diminution of reputation. One member of the crew—the one in whom the School and Club were especially interested—had his reputation to make, and made it. " All the ship's company, from Commander Wild down," wrote the Special Correspondent of The Times, " pay the highest tribute to James Man, the boy scout of the ' Quest ' " Extracts from letters written by him on the voyage have already appeared in the Magazine. It remains only to add that he is no longer a cabin-boy, but a fully qualified A.B., letters of which he may well be as proud as of any that Aberdeen University may in the future confer. In the meantime, Man has been engaged on special work by Dr. J. J. Rowett, who financed the " Quest " expedition. When that work is finished, he is to resume study at Aberdeen University. All readers of the Magazine will wish Man the best of luck in settling down again quietly at home, after his twenty-five thousand miles' voyage.

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OBITUARY. Sir John Duthie.

Sir John Duthie (1871-73), K.B.E., of Cairnbulg, died at his residence, Keinpsons, Whitchurch, Bucks, on 19th June. Born at Aberdeen in 1858, Sir John was the eldest son of the late Mr. William Duthie of Cairnbulg, and a descendant of the founder of the well-known Aberdeen firm of shipbuilders and shipowners. This firm was the first to establish a regular line to Australia, and the last of its famous clippers, the " Port Jackson," was sunk by a submarine in 1917. Sir John was educated at the School and at Aberdeen University, •and at Lincoln's Inn was called to the Bar in 1880. His business activities were many. He started a London office for his firm, and his connexion with shipping led him to take a prominent part in " breaking" the great London dockers' strike. When the Port of London Authority was created, he was selected by the L.C.C. as one of its representatives on the Court of the Authority. On the creation, during the War, of the Department of Director-General of Voluntary Organizations Sir John became Deputy Director-General, and spoke on behalf of the Department at numerous public meetings throughout the country. He was made K.B.E. after the War. He was Chairman of the Steamship Owners' Coal Association, Ltd., London, and Vice-Chairman of William Cory & Son, Ltd., London. He also sat on boards of several other important undertakings, amongst which were :—Mann, George and Co., Ltd., London ; Societe Francaise, Wm. Cory et Fils, Paris ; Compagnie Rouennaise de Dechargements, Rouen ; and Richards, Ltd., Aberdeen. His interest in his native district was keen and practical. In his early days he was a player of note in the 'Shire cricket team and he was also an enthusiastic Volunteer Officer. He originated the Aberdeen Artists' Society. He was a leader in promoting the St. Combs Light Railway, and in agriculture and the management of his estate he took an active part. The restored old Castle of Cairnbulg is a monument to his artistic taste. Sir John is survived by Lady Duthie, who was Miss Lesley Fyfe, second daughter of the late Mr. John Fyfe, D.L., and four sons and two daughters. Arthur Clark Abel (1880-82), minister of Dudhope United Free Church, Dundee, died at Dundee on 8th September, aged 57 years. After leaving the School he attended classes at Aberdeen University, and then studied at the Aberdeen Free Church Divinity Hall from 1887 to 1891. In 1893 he was appointed to Dudhope Free (now United Free) Church, Dundee, and there he ministered with great

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success for nearly 30 years. He was a man of wide 'culture and of most attractive personality. John Saunders Adamson (1860-65), formerly of The Gables, Boxmoor, Herts, died at Dumfries on 28th July, aged 72 years. Maxwell Wright Anderson* (1879-82) died at Wallington, Surrey, on 28th October, aged 55 years. He was the fourth son of the late Mr. James Anderson of Angusfield, Aberdeen, and on leaving the School served for five years with Messrs. C. & P. H. Chalmers, advocates, Aberdeen. Thereafter for three years he was with a mercantile firm in Hamburg, and from 1890 with mercantile firms in London, being latterly a director of various English and French industrial companies. John Travers Clark (1885-?) died at Croydon on 6th August, aged 49 years. He was a son of the late Mr. Peter Clark of Lochhead Villa, Aberdeen, and became a tea planter in Assam, from which he retired some years ago. James Crabb* (1863-65), M.A., M.D., died at his home, 59 Parkhurst Road, Holloway, London, on 11th July, aged 72 years. He was the second son of the late Mr. Robert Crabb, banker, Auchinblae. . After taking his degree in arts at Aberdeen University, he studied medicine in Edinburgh, where he graduated M.B., C.M., in 1875 and M.D. in 1877. He practised his profession in North London for over forty years, and held a number of public appointments. Robert Hugh Dean (1868-72), M.A., died at Aberdeen on 3rd August, aged 67 years. He was a son of the late Mr. Hugh Dean, engineer, Deeside Railway. After graduating M.A., with honours in Classics, at Aberdeen University in 1876, he was appointed head master of Findon Public School, and continued there until 1897, when he was transferred to Banchory-Devenick Public School. He retired, owing to ill-health, in 1919. Two of his sons were pupils at the School : FREDERICK JOHN DEAN* (1896-1901), who is on the staff of Victoria Public School, Falkirk ; and CHARLES ALFRED DEAN (1908-14), who is a medical student at Aberdeen University. Douglas A. Dunningham (1886-90), of Ingleside, Stonehaven, died at Murtle on 24th July, aged 42 years. He was the younger son of WILLIAM DUNNINGHAM* (1862-65). After leaving School he was, with the exception of three years in London, in the business of Messrs. W. Dunningham & Co., wholesale manufacturing jewellers, Aberdeen, being latterly managing partner. He joined the Royal Field Artillery (T.F.) as a Second Lieutenant in June, 1915, and later went to France. He was invalided home after three-and-a-half years' service there. His brother, ERNEST W. DUNNINGHAM (1886-89), died in December, 1908.

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•

Leslie Cruickshank Elmslie* (1863-68) died at Elterwater, Ambleside, on 25th September, aged 70 years. He was a son of the late Rev. William Elmslie, minister of the Free Church, Insch, and took the degree of M.A. at Edinburgh University in 1874. He entered commercial life in Liverpool in the previous year, and in 1881 became a partner in the firm of Messrs. William Just & Co., shipowners, Liverpool. He retired in 1915, and latterly resided at Elterwater, Ambleside. William Gauld (1855-56), M.D., died in London on 14th June, aged 82 years. He was a son of the late Mr. Edgar Gauld, mason, Aberdeen, and brother of Mr. Edgar Gauld, retired builder, Aberdeen. He graduated in arts at Marischal College in 1860, and received the degree of M.D. in 1862. He became a medical missionary of the English Presbyterian Church in China, being stationed for eighteen years at Swatow. His health breaking down, he was obliged to come home, and subsequently he was appointed Superintendent of the Mildmay Mission Hospital, Bethnal Green, London. This position he held for twelve years, retiring a short time before the War. When the War broke out, however, he took up • duty again, and finally retired two years ago, being then 80 years of age. William James Johnston* (1903-14), M.C., youngest son of Mr. Alexander Johnston, Homewood, Countesswells Road, Aberdeen, died at Banchory on 8th August, aged 24 years. He was mobilized at the age of 15 as a Private in the Grammar School Company of the 4th Battalion Gordon Highlanders (T.F.). On account of his age he was not allowed to accompany the Battalion to France, and was discharged in April, 1915. He returned to Aberdeen, and studied medicine at the University until, having attained the necessary age, he entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was gazetted Second Lieutenant, Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in May, 1917, and served in France during 1917-18. He was awarded the Military Cross on 18th January, 1918, for gallantry in an attack on an enemy position at Passchendaele Ridge. " With two sections of his platoon he captured a ' pill-box,' killing many of the enemy and taking seventeen prisoners." During the engagement he was wounded in the breast, and he never recovered from the effects of the injury. He resumed the study of medicine at Aberdeen, and passed the second professional examination before ill-health compelled him to give up his studies. An older brother, GEORGE MITCHELL JOHNSTON (1898-1907), who was a Captain in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, was killed in action in France in April, 1916. William Lyall (1880- 89) died at Fetteresso Estate, Bogawantalawa, Ceylon, on 1st June, aged 50 years. He

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went out to Ceylon in 1894 and engaged in planting there until his death. John McBain* (1887-94), son of Mr. John McBain, formerly head master of the Girls' High School, Aberdeen, died at Meran, Italy, on 20th October, aged 44 years. When at the School he took a leading place in all his classes, and at Aberdeen University he graduated M.A. in 1899, with honours in Classics, winning the Seafield Latin Medal and the Dr. Black Latin Prize. He then became a scholar of Pembroke College, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1901. In the following year he joined the staff of the Nottingham Daily Express, and thereafter that of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Company. In 1904 he joined Lord Northcliffe's publishing organization, and was employed in various editorial and commercial capacities in different branches of the business. He became a director of the Educational Book Company and of the Standard Literature Company, and was acting-editor of " Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopedia " from 1915 to 1917, when he resigned owing to ill-health. This compelled him of late years to spend much time on the Continent, particularly in 'Austria and Italy. Ian Langlands Fraser Macbeth (1898-1902), youngest son of the late Mr. JAMES MACBETH (1866-68), pianoforte maker and musicseller, Aberdeen, died at Glasgow on 25th October, aged 30 years. He was in the service of the Canadian Bank of Commerce in Toronto for five years from 1907, and joined the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation in London in 1913. On the outbreak of war he was mobilized as a Lieutenant in the North Scottish R.G.A. (T.F.), and was promoted Captain in 1915, and Major in 1917. He served at home throughout the War, except for five months spent in 'France. After being demobilized in 1920, he joined the firm of Messrs. W. B. Dick & Co., oil refiners, Glasgow. George Grant Macdonald (1861-63), minister of the United Free Church, Ordiquhill, died at the Manse, Cornhill, Banff, on 8th October, aged 78 years. After leaving the School, he studied at Aberdeen University, the English Presbyterian College, London, and the Free Church College, Aberdeen. He was ordained in 1874, and later became minister of the Free (now United Free) Church, Ordiquhill, Banffshire. He was the father of GEORGE GRANT MACDONALD* (1895-96), M.A., M.D., who is in medical practice in North London. David Mayer (1866-69), M.B., Bucksburn, Aberdeen, died there on 20th November, aged 66 years. He graduated in medicine at Aberdeen University in 1878, and for many years carried on a large practice in the Bucksburn district. John Moysey Rattray* (1867-72), M.A., M.D., died

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very suddenly at the Kingsway Hotel, London, on 5th November, aged 65 years. He appeared to be in the best of health and spirits when he retired to bed at 10.30, after a strenuous day at Mr. Lloyd George's meeting at Stoll's Theatre, two motor' shows, etc., and passed away at midnight after an illness which lasted only twenty minutes. He graduated in arts at Aberdeen in 1877 and in medicine in 1882. In the latter year he started in medical practice at Frome, Somerset, and continued there until 1917, when he was attacked by a crazy patient, receiving injuries which undermined his health and led to his retirement in 1920. He then went to London, where he pursued medical and historical studies at the British Museum and in the University of London, being engaged at the time of his death on a history of British medicine. He took a great interest in the London Section of the F.P. Club, and was present at the meeting in Carr's Resturant on the last Thursday of October. Only a day or two before his death he sent a cheque for the Byron Statue Fund to the Secretary of the Club. He was a brother-in-law of the late Mr. ALEXANDER MACKIE (1870-72), principal of Albyn Place School, Aberdeen, for whom he, like many others, had the warmest regard. Francis Farquharson Reid (1855-60), son of the late Rev. Robert Reid, Banchory Ternan, died in Edinburgh on 4th November, aged 77 years. Frederick William Rennet (1879-85), a well-known journalist who belonged to Aberdeen, died at Lubeck, Germany, on 22nd August. He was the third son of the late Mr. David Rennet, LL.D., and was educated at the School and Aberdeen University. He had a strong inclination towards journalism, and entered the offices of the Aberdeen Free Press and Evening Gazette. He later went to the Free Press London Office, and afterwards to the Exchange Telegraph Company, where his great knowledge of foreign languages was of advantage. He held the position of special correspondent to the Pall Mall Gazette in several cities abroad. Mr. Rennet afterwards went to Petrograd as special correspondent to a number of papers, and was in that city when the War broke out. He was kept in captivity in Russia up to the beginning of last year, when he returned to London. He was on his way back to Russia when the illness, which resulted in his death, overtook him as he was passing through Germany. The illness was caused by the privations which he endured during captivity in Russia. He contributed numerous articles to the National Review on European politics. Mr. Rennet was married to a Russian lady, by whom he is survived. Alexander Emslie Smith* (1877-80), advocate, died suddenly from a heart attack at his residence, Summerhill,

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Aberdeen, on 22nd August. He was the second son of the late Mr. Alexander Emslie Smith, advocate, who died at an advanced age in August last year. He was born on 24th February, 1864, and was educated at Rattray's School and the Grammar School. He proceeded to the University and took his M.A. degree in 1885. He was apprenticed to his father, and in 1891 he was admitted a member of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen. He carried on business with his father till the latter's retirement. Thereafter he was the sole partner of the firm. In his younger days he served in the 1st A.R.E.V. When the War broke out in 1914 he was fifty, but he offered his services to the recruiting department, and he was engaged at the local National Service headquarters in Huntly Street, holding the rank of Captain. He was particularly interested in music and art. When the Aberdeen Pen and Pencil Club was formed in 1891 he became its first Secretary, and was also Secretary of the Aberdeen Artists' Society, a position to which he was appointed in 1891, and in which he rendered notable service to the interests of art in the north of Scotland. Mr. Emslie Smith was one of the best known amateur singers in Aberdeen. He was unmarried. Alexander Thomson (1861-62), Hazelbank, Sydenham Hill, London, died suddenly on 23rd August, aged 73. Mr. Thomson, who was born in Aberdeen, was one of several brothers who have each made their mark in the world. An obituary notice of his brother, PETER DUGUID THOMSON (1859-62), appeared in the last issue of the Magazine. Like his brother he was educated privately and subsequently at the Grammar School. He began his career with Messrs. J. & A. Scrimgeour of the Stock Exchange, London ; became a Member of the House in 1880, and in 1881 founded with his brother, Mr. H. W. Thomson, the firm which bears his name— the first firm to deal exclusively in Colonial stocks. Of his business capacity those who came into intimate contact with Mr. Thomson found it impossible to speak too highly. He was possessed of rare judgment and an exceptional knowledge of Colonial Finance, and his views were sought freely in regard to matters affecting the welfare of the market with which he was identified and of the Stock Exchange as a whole. In the crisis that affected the City at the outbreak of the late War he gave valued assistance to his colleagues in the formulation of emergency measures for the conduct of business. The starting of dealings subject to minimum prices was one of those measures—justified by events—that were largely due to his initiative. But Mr. Thomson's memory will be cherished mostly on account of his personal qualities, for he was undoubtedly one of the most charming personalities which the Stock Exchange has claimed for half a century. His cheery personality and

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his intellectual gifts endeared him to a very wide range of friends in the City of London. Not only there will Mr. Thomson leave an impression of loss that will endure. The innate modesty that characterized his appraisement of his own deeds renders possible only a very imperfect appreciation of his numerous benefactions. There are many young men both in and out of the City to-day who have cause to remember with gratitude the guidance and material help given to them at critical times by Mr. Thomson. There were few good causes that appealed to his purse in vain. He was particularly interested in the welfare of boys, and took a very keen interest in such works of benevolence as were designed to help to mould the character of those youths who otherwise might not get the start in life available to those more favourably circumstanced. The Scout movement appealed to his whole-hearted support, and the work carried on by the Royal Caledonian Schools commended itself strongly to his generous nature. John Charles Ogilvie Will (1856-60), M.D., F.R.S.E., J.P., one of the original Honorary Vice-Presidents of the F.P. Club, died at Aberdeen on 29th June, aged 77. He was a son of Dr. JAMES WILL (1822-25), Woodside, and was educated at the School. He graduated M.B. at Aberdeen University in 1866, and afterwards proceeded to Edinburgh and became the assistant of the late Sir James Y. Simpson, with whom he remained a considerable time. He next assisted Professor Pirrie, Aberdeen, in his private operations, finally becoming University Assistant Professor of Surgery. In 1874, when only 29 years of age, he was elected surgeon to the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, a post he held for 15 years, but which, in 1889, he was compelled to resign on account of the large increase of his private practice. Robert Catto Williamson (1859-64) died at Braeside Cottage, Pitfodels, on 10th July. He was a son of Mr. James Williamson, wholesale wine merchant, Aberdeen, and on leaving the School in 1864 entered his father's business. He was in charge of the business from 1867-82, when it was wound up. Thereafter he was a traveller in the wholesale wine and spirit trade until he retired in 1910. Robert Spottiswood Farquhar Hardie Mearns, youngest son of Mr. J. G. Mearns, Town Clerk's Office, Aberdeen, died suddenly at Moss-side, Drum, on 3rd August, aged 15 years. He was a pupil attending the School, having entered in September, 1919, and had made up his mind to become a medical missionary.

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Henry James Robertson Nairn, who also became a pupil of the School in September, 1919, died on 1st May last, as the result of a cliff accident at Cove on the May Holiday.

Marriages. Allan (1913-14).—At Sauchen U.F. Church, Cluny, on 12th September, CHARLES DAVIDSON ALLAN, M.B., Ch.B., Peterhead, son of James G. Allan,

Tillycairn, Cluny, to Isabel Ingram, youngest daughter of the late Robert Walker, senior, fishcurer, Aberdeen. Anderson . (1900-02).—At 35a Union Street, Aberdeen, on 16th November, HERBERT ROBERT ANDERSON, tea planter, Assam, second son of the late William Anderson and of Mrs. Anderson, 166 Bon-Accord Street, to Evelyn A., elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles M'Naughton, Aberdeen. Collet (1910-14).—At the Grand Hotel, Aberdeen, on 15th August, THOMAS COLLET,* Inverness, son of T. Collet, 44 Roseberv Street, Aberdeen, to Evelyn Falconer, younger daughter of the late Alexander Monro, Fraserburgh, and Mrs. Morro, 26 Rosebery Street, Aberdeen. Copland (1906-07),—At 52 Fonthill Road, on 7th November, ALICE DONALDSON COPLAND, son of the late Edward Copland, and of Mrs. Copland, Cranleigh, Newtonhill, to Winifred Webster M'Allan, daughter of the late Alexander M'Allan, and of Mrs. Gilchrist, 52 Fonthill Road, Aberdeen. Lawrence (1909-16).—At Glass Parish Church, on 5th September, Rev. PHILIP DOUGLAS LAWRENCE, M.A., New Deer and Maud United Free Church, only son of the late Mr. Calder M. Lawrence, and Mrs. Lawrence, 90 Blenheim Place, Aberdeen, to Elizabeth Paton Gloag, youngest daughter of Rev. W. G. and Mrs. Guthrie, The Manse, Glass. Legge (1893-99).—At 56 Albury Road, Aberdeen, on 8th November, EDWARD LEGGE, M.A., B.L., to Annie Gellan, eldest daughter of Robert Garrow, 56 Albury Road, Aberdeen. Lumsden (1887-?).-In London, on 26th August, Lieutenant-Colonel WILLIAM FORBES LUMSDEN, eldest surviving son of the late James Forbes Lumsden, to Vera, only daughter of Colonel Thomas Davidson, late 16th Lancers, and of the late Mrs. Davidson. MacDiarmid (1889-94).—At St. Patrick's Church, Hove, on 16th October, ALEXANDER JAMES MACDIARMID, M.B., Ch.B., to Florence, second daughter of the late Frederick Sharpe, stockbroker, and of Mrs. E. Sharpe, 9 Cambridge Road, Hove. McKinnon (1905-15).—At the Cathedral Church of St. Andrew, Aberdeen, SYDNEY.FREDERICK MCKINNON,* eldest son of the late Frederick Lachlan McKinnon, Spring Garden Ironworks, Aberdeen, and Mrs. McKinnon, 122 Hamilton Place, to Fordyce Brown, youngest daughter of the late George Black, district traffic superintendent, Northern Section, Caledonian Railway, and Mrs. Black, 117 Whinhill Road, Aberdeen. Philp (1911-12).—At Christ Church, Crouch End, London, on 15th July, Captain ROBERT CHARLES PENNY PHILP,* M.C. (Scottish Rifles), only son of the late Andrew K. Philp, of Rora, Aberdeenshire, and Oruro, Bolivia, and of Mrs. Young, Bank House, Strichen, Aberdeenshire, to Florence Myrtle, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Campbell, Essex House, Hornsey Lane, London. Riddoch (1906-09).—At the Cathedral, Mombasa, British East Africa, on 7th August, JOHN. LOUIS Rinnocit,.son of Mr. and Mrs. Riddoch, Tarryblake, Rothiemay, to Florence Mabel, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, 19 Devonshire Road, Aberdeen.

Our Contemporaries. We acknowledge, with thanks, having received the following :—The Herioter (July), The Watsonian (Summer), Schola Regia (Summer), Stewart's College Magazine (July), Edinburgh Academy Chronicle (July and November), The Fettesian (June), The Merchistonian (June and August), Glasgow High School Magazine (June), Glasgow Academy Chronicle (June and October), Hamilton Academy Magazine (June), The Gknalmond Chronicle (July), The Edward Alleyn Magazine (June), The Taylorian (July), The Olavian (July), Our School Times (Foyle College Londonderry—Summer), The South African College School Magazine (August), The Scotch Collegian (Melbourne—May and August), The Nelsonian (New Zealand—July).

The Right Honourable ROBERT MUNRO, Lord ALNESS, Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland.

WILLIAM KEITH LEASK, M.A. (From the painting by Mr. John B. Souter recently presented to the School.)

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Mr. William Keith Leask. Striking Portrait Presented to the School. Former Pupils all over the world, and many other friends, will rejoice that the services to the School and to education in Aberdeen and the North rendered by Mr. Keith Leask have been recognized by the presentation of his portrait to the School. The portrait has been most successfully painted by Mr. John B. Souter, who also painted the portrait of Dr. H. F. Morland Simpson which hangs in the School Hall. The artist, it has been remarked, has done more than merely catch the features of a rugged subject; he has produced a great painting, which is not only a representation of the outward man, but an interpretation of one of the most remarkable intellects in the present generation of Scottish letters. The presentation ceremony took place in the School Library on the afternoon of Saturday, 21st October. It was originally arranged that Lord Meston was to come specially from London, to hand over the portrait on behalf of the subscribers, but a few days before, His Lordship wrote that he had just been " annexed by the Treasury" for an urgent piece of business which, to his great regret, would prevent his leaving London at the week-end. In these circumstances it fell to Sheriff P. J. Blair, Glasgow, who had previously agreed to preside, to add to the duties of Chairman that of performing the presentation ceremony. By 3 p.m. the Library was comfortably filled by a representative corn-, pany of old school and college classfellbws of Mr. Leask, former pupils of his, and other friends. After some brief opening remarks by the Chairman, Mr. Theodore Watt, the Secretary of the Portrait Committee, read a long list of apologies for absence, including striking tributes from Sir W. Leslie Mackenzie, Sir Robert Bruce, editor of the Glasgow Herald; Dr. J. M. Bullock, editor of The Graphic ; and Mr. Howard A. Gray, of the Pall Mall Gazette and The Observer. Sheriff Blair's Tribute. The Chairman, in making, the presentation, said that the happy idea of presenting Mr. Leask with his portrait gave, the subscribers a long-sought-for opportunity to express their admiration for him as a teacher and an old friend. It was not easy to convey in words what a firm hold in the affections of old pupils of the School, of old graduates and alumni of the University Mr. Leask had. Some idea would be got from the apologies that had just been read. When the scheme was first mooted, it was received by all Mr. Leask's old contemporaries with unbounded enthusiasm. They felt that at least they could give some recognition to his great

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scholarship and literary eminence. Here was a man living in modest retirement, avoiding publicity like the plague, yet giving forth of the treasures of his mind delight and inspiration to many Aberdonians at home and abroad, and making for them a bond of union to their ancient city and its ancient University. Such gifts ungrudgingly given by one who loved his birthplace, his old School, and his old University, had awakened in all of them memories which, though not entirely faded, had, alas, been growing dimmer and dimmer with time and absence. It was a long time back to 1881 when the Sheriff first knew Mr. Leask as Assistant Professor in the Greek Class at the University : a jaunty, alert figure in an Inverness cape sweeping across the quadrangle to the old Cromwell Tower, fresh from triumphs at the great University of Oxford, his face indicating fierce mental energy, and the suspicion of an ironic, but always friendly, smile. Here was something new, an energizing influence suddenly blown into the sleepy old quadrangle. And when they met him in the classroom they suddenly discovered the humanity of his nature and his great personal charm. It was impossible to avoid the attraction. With consummate ease he brought himself to their level, shared their aspirations, as well as their aversions and their sympathies, and won for himself, without the asking, a place in their affections which had lasted all those years. His knowledge, poured out in an incessant stream of lucid and instructive criticism, never for a moment dull, sometimes caustic, came to them as a revelation and an inspiration. Sheriff Blair, continuing, said that he could not speak of Mr. Leask's boyhood or his career at the Grammar School. His career at King's College was a brilliant one—the best Classic of his time, 1873-77 ; the Simpson Greek Prizeman, the Seafield Latin Gold Medallist, and a First Class in Classics. At Oxford, as Scholar of Worcester College, he took further honours, and gained there what is perhaps more valuable, a deep and lasting conviction of the value of infra-mural collegiate life. His classical distinction for those 40 years had not been equalled, certainly not surpassed, by any other graduate of King's, and it was appropriately fitting that his name and portrait should find a place in the roll of honour with the great Latinists—the brothers Wedderburn, Arthur Johnston, Thomas Ruddiman, and James Melvin, who have made the glory of Aberdeen scholarship world-renowned. One of them at least was the Rector of his old School, and Leask's portrait was worthy to hang by his side. Mr. Leask had edited and written several volumes in the Famous Scots Series. He was a constant and valued contributor to the Glasgow Herald on all subjects, ranging from history to literature, and even Scottish songs. There was no subject upon which he was dull, and with a prodigious

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memory he threw his readers into the/past with reminiscence after reminiscence of the times gone by. His "Interamna Borealis: Memories and Portraits from an old University Town between the Don and the Dee," was a charming book of real Aberdeen University atmosphere. It took the exile back to the quiet peace of the Old Town, to the deep, solemn shadows of the old quadrangle, to the chilling winter blasts of the Spital Brae, to the spreading links, edged with the golden sand of the glorious bay, and beyond, the unlimited horizon of the North Sea as seen from the Broad Hill, with only the swirling seagulls as companions crying " Whither, whither ? " ; moments and incidents grave and gay, hopeful or despondent ; memories and portraits of old professors and old friends. Gone, all gone, the old familiar faces. Above all, in this book, Leask had created what they all had felt;but could not express, a halo around and a veneration for the old Crown of King's. " And so, my old friend," said the Sheriff in conclusion, " with silent affection, we press your hand in warm welcome, hoping that you may enjoy a long, happy, and prosperous life in the years that are to come." Other Tributes. After the Chairman had unveiled the portrait amid hearty applause, Professor Ashley W. Mackintosh spoke in place of Principal Sir George Adam Smith, who had contracted a chill and was unable to be present. Professor Mackintosh said that his fellow-members of the University Senatus would like him to say how heartily and affectionately they joined in doing honour to one to' whom honour was so fully due. Mr. George Duncan, Chairman of the Aberdeen Education Authority, in accepting custody of the portrait on behalf of the Authority, said that all who, like himself, had studied under Mr. Leask, regarded him not merely as a fine scholar—one of the finest flowers of scholarship which our hard northern climate had reared—not merely as a patriotic Scot and a devoted son of their common Alma Mater, but as a personal friend and as a unique personality. It was most gratifying to think that by that portrait the name and memory of Mr. Leask would be preserved in all time coming in the School of which he had been so loyal and devoted a pupil. He believed that, of all his many interests, the Grammar School of Aberdeen lay nearest to Mr. Leask's heart, and in accepting the portrait he would ask him to believe that it would always be most carefully cherished and preserved within those walls. It was altogether appropriate that in the Hall of the School, which was the centre of its activities and which expressed the soul of all its work, portraits and memorials of its outstanding alumni should be placed, so as to remind the pupils of the days

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of the great ones who had gone before. Among such memorials the portrait of Mr. Leask most assuredly deserved a place, and he knew that now and in the future it would be regarded and revered as preserving the memory of one of those many distinguished men who, in the long history of the old School, had handed on the torch of learning and scholarship from one generation to another. Mr. Douglas G. Miller, Rector of the School, who spoke as the immediate custodian of the portrait, said that on behalf of the School he was very grateful to have the opportunity of associating himself with all that had been said. It might be presumption on his part to attempt any estimate of the intellectual capacity of Mr. Keith Leask, but one thing, as Rector of the School, he might emphasize, and it was that since he had been in Aberdeen he was conscious that the Grammar School of Aberdeen had no more devoted son than Mr. Keith Leask. He could assure them that they would regard the portrait with honour and affection. Mr. Leask's Reply. Mr. Keith Leask, on rising to reply, was accorded an enthusiastic reception. They lived in stirring times, he said, and at that moment he thought they might say it was a very difficult question to decide whether the late Prime Minister, or the present Lord Rector, or he himself was in the greatest state of dissolution. (Laughter.) A sword had been hanging over him for six months and he was quite sure if it had gone on much longer, his final dissolution would not have been delayed. (Laughter.) At such a moment as that, when he was faced with so• many speakers who were, professionally, practised speakers, it was very difficult for him, who was not at all a speaker, to stand there. If he had been wise, perhaps he might have dipped into a book which he read 50 years ago, the title of which was " The Gentleman's own Guide to the Conduct of the Ballroom— (laughter)—with a few Supplementary Hints on Love, Courtship, and Marriage—(laughter)—and Public Speaking " (loud laughter). On such an occasion as that his memory flew back to the last day of the University session of 1876-77, when they presented a portrait to the late John Fyfe. He was taken by surprise but he rose to it very grandly, and in the course of his speech said he believed there was a song, " Then you'll remember me." " That," he said, " is my song." Mr. Leask said it was strange that he, standing there that day, could also best express his feelings in a song from that incomparable opera, " The Bohemian Girl." It was the song which spoke about dwelling in marble halls, and then went on—he had sung the song himself many years ago—" I also dreamt, which pleased me most, that you loved me still the same." (Applause.) He felt it no ordinary

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pleasure to stand there and see around him so many old friends. He thanked them very heartily for the great honour which he felt had been done him in having his portrait hung on the walls of the School. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL'S PROUD CLAIM. It was perhaps not generally known, but he thought it should be known, that the Grammar School of Aberdeen was the most ancient educational institution in the entire British dominions. (Applause.) There used to be a claim for Ayr Academy, but that had been long since found to be bogus. Then there was a claim put in for St. Peter's School, York, and for King's School, Canterbury. Those claims also were found to be absolutely bogus. The most 'ancient institution for education in England was Merton College, in Oxford, founded in 1274, and the most ancient school in England was Winchester, which dated from 1387. But the Grammar School of Aberdeen dated at least from 1256. Thus, beyond all question, it was the most ancient institution, and it had a practically unbroken record from 1256. He always thought the late Dr. Morland Simpson was right in saying that as the city of Aberdeen dated- far beyond that, and as they must have had some education, where could they have got it but from the Grammar School? (Laughter.) He felt it a very great privilege that his own portrait should hang on the same walls as that of Dr. Simpson, whose extraordinary services to the town and to the School never were known, through the modesty and humility of the man. He assured them that among those who really knew, in the language of the Stock Exchange, Simpson stock was going strong. (Applause.) More he could say, but he thought more than sufficient had been said. " No ORDINARY PERSONALITY." Atter the speech of Sheriff Blair he could hardly realize himself. One newspaper alluded to him as having been a rugged subject. (Laughter.) Sir W. Leslie Mackenzie had spoken of him as a picturesque subject. He could hardly think that could be the same man of whom it was said by a titled individual—whose sex perhaps they might easily guess—a titled individual in a certain official residence in Old Aberdeen : " Yes, I remember him well ; he was a man with every instinct of a lady's maid." (Laughter.) When a person was at once picturesque, rugged, and also feminine in his general ways he must indeed have been no ordinary personality. (Laughter and applause.) He expressed his very great pleasure in being there and seeing so many old friends. He thanked them very heartily, but he was also certain of this, that what had been said that day by so many speakers was very far beyond his merits.

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A Portrait and a Dinner. Some Impressions of 21st October. Prophets are notoriously men of simple needs, and accordingly difficult to honour. Silver and gold they have none, and desire none. Even in our cold north-east they cultivate highthinking on a little oat-meal. It was, therefore, a happy idea on the part of those friends and admirers of Mr. William Keith Leask who wished to honour the man, and who knew him not merely scornful of gifts, but fier comme un Ecossais, to suggest that he should allow his portrait to be painted and presented to the School of which he has been so distinguished and devoted an alumnus. Rhadamanthus himself might not gainsay this ttawpov 5,zpov. It was Mr. J. D. Symon, I think, who aptly styled Keith Leask—rugged, austere, remote, breaking forth at long intervals from his fastness of books in Union Grove—as " the prophet of the Grove." Certainly in a social order that tends increasingly to smoothness and sleekness, he juts out at once a rock and a lighthouse. There is a tonic asperity about his very name. O Acroceraunian promontory ! The setting of the ceremony was well chosen—the School Library. It was the right place for the laureation of the man of letters and the recluse. The only possible alternative would have been the Cromwell Tower at King's College, recalling the days as lecturer, when, fresh from the triumphs of Oxford, Leask divided his class, like Gaul, into three parts : Tirones, Provectiores, and—profanum vu/gus—Athletes ; and discoursed on Greek and literature and life at large. But it was a pleasant revenge that the whirligig of time had brought that afternoon, for it was one of the Athlete of those days, who has since made good in the bigger arena of the work-a-day world, who presented the portrait, and in a speech full of affectionate reminiscence expressed gratitude to the teacher of those far-off days certainly, but still more to the man of letters and the author of that wonderful tribute of pietas, " Interamna Borealis," the best-thumbed book, the speaker confessed, in all his library. Sheriff Blair's speech did much to atone for the unavoidable absence of Lord Meston and of the Principal of the University. The " Prophet's" reply was characteristically naïf and whimsical. He doubted whether at that moment the late Prime Minister or the present Lord Rector, or he himself, was in a greater state of dissolution. It was good to hear him, in these days of superior persons, avow his partiality for " The Bohemian Girl "—" that incomparable opera" ; and in a moment of genuine feeling he claimed the mood of his friends to be expressed in the words of one of its songs, You love me still the same," He gloried in the anti-

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quity of the Grammar School—" the most ancient educational institution in the entire British dominions." Nor did he forget " H.F.M.S."—" in the language of the Stock Exchange Simpson stock is going strong." He frankly expressed pleasure that his portrait should hang in the School Hall beside one whom elsewhere he has proclaimed Aberdonensibus Aberdonensior. It was a very pleasant and kindly function, and the more notable that it was in honour of one of those rare souls who " dare be poor for a' that." * * * The portrait looked down upon us at the Dinner that same evening, linking us up still with the ceremony of the afternoon and its brave lonely central figure. The atmosphere was genial and exhilarating, and " Colonel Bogey's March " was an excellent whet to appetite. We were a goodly company, though our Mariner was a very youthful one, and together we spanned many years with one common girder--quondam discipulus. The Rector told us about the School as it now is—of the gift to the Library of a large portion of R. A. Neil's books ; how a schoolmaster in New Zealand had appealed for light and leading in matters scholastic to—of all the schools in Great Britain—the Aberdeen Grammar School ; and how esprit de corps was being fostered in the School by the dividing of it into four Houses, called after names great in the history of the School—Byron, Dun, Keith, and Melvin. Then there was Mr. j. Mackenzie Forbes's rousing rendering of the School Song, " Bon-Record," to a setting of his own, sending me back to the days when the song was first composed by Dr. Morland Simpson, when I was a boy at School, and the controversy about the Byron Statue waxed hot and furious. The song deserves to be rescued from the limbo of things forgotten, and we may hope yet to hear the boys, under the leadership of Mr. Forbes, singing that grand chorus with something of his own gusto :— " For search broad Scotland, high and low, from John o' Groats to Tweed, No truer race of men is bred than the loyal Grammar breed." But my chief delight that evening was to see the honour done to Scout Marr. Our hero of the " Quest " sat at the top table, a little timorous, I well believe, for all his adventures in the Antarctic, flanked by the respective Heads of his own School and the other ; and when the Club vociferated " Man," the man of action, as the President of the Club called him, uttered a few embarrassed words of thanks. It was a great moment. To one who had known the boy from childhood, who had seen him grow up, eager, so eager, to do things,

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whether to build a crow's nest in the tree at home or to swim, so avid of curious lore—the fire-escape at Broadford, the old canal-way, Oueen Mary's house in the -Castlegate—that ardent hero-worshipper—it seemed all so recent, one could scarcely believe it was this same boy who now stood, himself a hero, acclaimed on all sides, after the Chief the best-known Scout in all the world. Bravo, James ! Mack virtule esto I Truly a great School, broad-based, democratic in the best sense of the word. Certainly not a school of snobs. William Keith Leask*, James Man, Lord Meston, Lord Alness, yes, and the Athlet, too, a great multitude to be sure, making good in Canada and China and all over the world—some of them expanding their lungs that night in a magnificent valedictory " School "—they are widely divergent types, but all of the true Grammar breed. The School has lived, it lives still, and will live. J. M. R. [NOTE.—A report of the F.P. Club Annual Dinner appears on pp. 71.]

The School in Bygone Days. We propose to print from time to time short extracts from various sources giving glimpses of what was going on at the School one, two, three, and even four hundred years ago. In accordance with this proposal, two extracts are given below. Three Hundred Years Ago. The first extract is taken from the minutes of a meeting of the Town Council of Aberdeen held in the month of November exactly 300 years ago. It is the earliest notice of the presence in Aberdeen of its first printer, Edward Raban, the tercentenary of whose coming to the city was suitably celebrated in June of this year. He was appointed printer to the Town Council on the 20th November, 1622, when a salary of forty pounds Scots was ordered to be paid to him yearly, and every scholar attending the Grammar School had to pay him eightpence quarterly, which sum was to be collected with the school fees. The following excerpt is taken from the Aberdeen Council Register, Vol. LI, p. 20, and is reproduced with all its quaintness of language and spelling :20th November 1622. The Samyn day The Prowest baillies and Counsall upon dyvers gude considerationnes moveing thame and namelie In respect of the ease to all * The portrait of Mr. Keith Leask was excellently reproduced in The Times on 21st October, and by a curious coincidence there appeared beneath it portraits of Scout Marr and Lord Alness.—Ed. A .G.S. Mag.

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townes bairnes quha are at the scholes of this burghe in the pryces of their books to witt a third penny downe of ilk book quhilk they wer wont to pey for the same abefoir, Gives and grantis to Eduard Raban printer induellar in this burghe Ane pensioun of fourtie pundis yeirlie to be payit to him induring the will and plesure of the Counsall allenerlie and na longer be the Dean of gild of the burghe for the time at tua termer in the yeir Witsonday and Martimas in Writer be equall portionnes The first years payment begynnand at the feast of Martimas Imlie bygaine in this instant yeir of god Jaj vic and tuantie tua yeirs And forder it is thocht expedient that during the counsallis Will everie schollar at the Grammer schole musick and Inglishe schooles sall give aucht pennyes quarterlie to the prynter to be payit with their scholage to the Maister of Schole And he to mak payment of ilk scholaris aucht pennyes to the prynter, and to the effect the counsall may be certifiet of the ease foirsaid in the pryces of thair bairnes books It is ordainit that a tabill salbe maid of all suche bukes as ar requisite for the bairnes both in the grammer schole and Inglishe schole and the said tabill to be printed and put on a brod and a copie yairof to be fixit in the clerkis chalmer and ane uther in Dauid Mailings bueth quha sellis the bookes and the third tabill to be affixit in ilk schole.

One Hundred Years Ago. The second extract is taken from the Aberdeen Journal of 30th October, 1822, and gives the report of the Annual Inspection of the School made exactly 100 years ago. Readers will, no doubt, be impressed with the difference between the curriculum of those days and that which now obtains. .

The Annual Visitation of the PUBLIC SCHOOLS of this city took place on Wednesday last. The Lord Provost and Magistrates, the Professors of the University, and the Clergy, met at 10 o'clock. . . . The Visitors repaired to the GRAMMAR SCHOOL, where, after exercises in translating from English into Latin were prescribed to the fourth and fifth classes, taught by Mr. CROMAR, the Rector, and to the third, taught by Mr. MELVIN, they heard the first and second classes examined by their respective teachers, Mr. FORBES and Mr. WATT. During a long examination, the latter classes gave very great satisfaction by their translations of passages of Latin pointed out by the visitors, and by the knowledge of Etymology and Syntax, and of the Latin idiom, displayed in their answers to many very pertinent questions proposed by the masters. Several of the Professors and Clergy were employed during the evening in examining the versions written by the higher classes, and in determining the order of merit. Of the versions given in by each class, not a few were found to be free from errors, although the exercises presented considerable difficulties : several of them were accounted elegant ; and, in general, they displayed such a knowledge of the structure of the Latin language as did very great credit to both masters and scholars. On Thursday, the visitors being re-assembled in the Grammar School, the usual prizes, consisting of books, were distributed to the most deserving scholars in the several classes ; after which the Lord Provost, with the entire concurrence of all the visitors, complimented the Rector, and the other Masters, on the high character still supported by the seminary ; and expressed his hope that their exertions as teachers would continue to be animated by the confidence of the public. It must, the Visitors think, be highly satisfactory to the citizens of Aberdeen to know that, in the judgment of those whose duty it is to examine into the state of public education in this place, the Grammar School continues to be a seminary in which the Latin language is accurately taught—where successful methods of communicating knowledge, and forming habits of attention, are adopted—where the emulation excited by public education is usefully directed—and where the foundation may be laid of those higher attainments in polite literature for which it is the business of Universities to afford peculiar facilities. N.B.—The ELEMENTARY CLASS in the Grammar School will be Opened by Mr. MELVIN on Friday the 1st November, at 10 o'clock.

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Some Phases of an Army Career.—III. BY UBIQUE.

Colombo, the commercial capital of Ceylon and also the seat of Government, was originally a walled fort ; in fact, to this day the business centre and all the Government offices and the Governor's Colombo residence are situated within the precincts of the old Fort,, and this centre is still known as the Fort. To the Northward, towards the mouth of the Kelani River, lies the Pettah or native quarters with its heterogeneous population of all races. Within this area is Mutwal, the headquarters of the fishing industry. To the South, outside the precincts of the Fort area, is an open space known as Galle Face, with its famous drive right along the sea front, and during the S.W. monsoon spume and spindrift are blown right across the drive. Many a fine fat turtle have a few of us turned on her back on a moonlight night below the Colombo Club during the calm season, as she came ashore to deposit her eggs, and hard work it was too. These turtles are very heavy and struggle hard, and one had to be quick—it seemed like trying to overturn a battleship in dry-dock ; but when to this day I think of turtle steak, I am sure every Alderman in London would sympathize could he but read these lines, and I say no more. There are sweet memories and momentous occasions which no records can do justice to, and turtle steak for dinner is just one of these. At one end of the drive is the Galle Face Hotel, and at the Fort end were the Echelon Barracks, the headquarters of the white troops of the garrison of Colombo, which at that time consisted of one company R.G.A. and a battalion of British Infantry, less two companies on detachment at Trincomali. The gunners occupied the end barrack next the Galle Face road. On the opposite side of the road, in prolongation, was the block containing the officers' quarters, At right and next to that the Mess, overlooking the sea. angles to the Mess was another block of quarters for married officers. Above the Galle Face Hotel, and a little to the right, facing the sea, is the Colombo Club, which was our second home. This building is in shape an oval, and contains on the top storey one of the most magnificent ballroom floors it has ever been my good fortune to dance on. By the removal of a few screens and tables the whole space was clear from end to end. I estimate that this room would be 120 feet by 60 feet. MATCH-MAKING.

There is a large lake in Colombo, and round here and further afield are the bungalows of merchants, Government officials,

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etc. The so-called Cinnamon Gardens was even in my time merely a name, but here there is another social Club—the Garden Club, which was devoted to tennis, croquet, flirtation, and match-making, the last being quite a pastime, and we young men always had to keep our weather eye lifting. Of course we had to play duty games, but as a rule we made up a party of four men, and after some vigorous sets, would don our sweaters, race for our rickshaws, and hop it for the Colombo Club. No ladies there ! We were safe. The dear things would come out from England with the very latest fashions, daughters to their parents, cousins and nieces to visit relatives. Then the stage would be set : Mrs. So-and-so requests the pleasure, etc., a nice little dance in a nice bungalow, pretty grounds with Chinese lanterns at very discreet intervals, and " Kala Jaggas," which, being literally interpreted, is black holes, but otherwise dark corners. There one would retire with a charming partner divinely gowned, the velvet tropical sky, fire-flies, langorous music in the middle distance, and, believe me, it was often dashed hard to keep one's foot off the accelerator. Some fell, but the majority were brutally callous. BALL DRESS. There is also a very fine racecourse in Colombo, and the Race Week, as it was called, was, together with the Turf Club Ball, the crowning social event of the year. It quite eclipsed the Birthday Ball at Queen's House, a severely official affair at which official precedence was strictly observed. As we youngsters had no precedence of any sort except that which our brazen impudence secured for us, we generally put in a good time. We did duty dances with our Regimental ladies, but that was no hardship—quite the contrary. We hated the Birthday Balls because the then Governor ordered that all officers attending this Ball were to appear in full-dress European uniform—in fact, levee dress. It was awful, and I was sorry for the Infantry officers. After about a couple of dances their scarlet tunics would begin to show dark patches where the perspiration was coming through, and by the end of the show they were in a pitiable plight. We Gunners were equally uncomfortable, but as our tunics are dark blue, nothing showed through. The Governor appeared in his first-class diplomatic uniform, which had about a ton of gold all over the chest, white knee-breeches, white silk stockings, shoes, etc., and a sword something like a very large hat-pin with a gilt handle. His Excellency was heavily laden, but he took care to ensconce himself on a dais flanked with huge blocks of ice, and there he remained until supper time, and when he left, the blocks of ice seemed to follow him. I shall never forget the state I was in when I took my tunic off in my quarters in the early hours of the morning.

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At Regimental dances we wore our white linen Mess dress, with a blue kummerbund of silk about ten feet long. The way one got into this thing is as follows : your head boy held one end, you held the other end at your waist, where you knew that, when inside, the further end could be tucked away at the back and not in front. Having satisfactorily settled this point, you proceeded to wind yourself half way into the thing. You then stopped, and the boy walked round you for the other half and tucked away the ends behind (if not, it had to be done all over again), and by the time it was all finished the second Mess call blew, and you had to hurry into your jacket and rush for the ante-room, in case you might be late. Dinner in the Army is a parade, and if you are late for dinner you are ipso facto late for parade. Of course, no self-respecting subaltern would ever dream of starting to dress until about fifteen minutes before the Mess call blew, but we generally managed to be there in time. MESS EXPENSES. The mention of Messes leads me here to make a statement which will cause my civilian readers a considerable amount of astonishment. For years past it has been a common theme amongst newspapers to harp upon the so-called extravagance in officers' messes in the Army. Throughout my twenty years' service as an officer on the Active List I have

never once come across a case of extravagance in the Army which could be traced to expensive Messes or to any bad example set by senior officers. My experience is that it is a bogey, and that

the exact opposite more nearly represents the truth. Remember, I am writing about the old regular Army, as I knew it before the War. The thing is patent. What Lieut.Colonel is there commanding a battalion who,, having got so far in his profession and hoping for consideration for further promotion, is going to jeopardize his chances by allowing the explicit instructions contained in the King's Regulations regarding officers' Mess expenses, etc., to be slurred over or disregarded ; or, similarly, what second-in-command who expects in course of time to succeed to the command of the battalion will commit professional hari-kari ? It's absurd, It is too often forgotten and against human nature. that a Mess is the collective home of the officers, and it is theirs to do with as they like within the Regulations. It is to them as a regiment what your house is to you, with this very important difference, that you can do as you like, whilst a Mess is regulated by instructions laid down in K.R., which has been in existence, for a long time and represents the accumulated wisdom of several generations and contains paragraphs designed to check extravagant tendencies and most effectually does so. The extravagance

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comes from outside sources—that is to say, trying to cut a dash in social circles. I will tell you a tragic story which exactly illustrates my argument. When my Company first went to Colombo there was no R.A. Mess, and we lived with the Infantry Battalion, and naturally became intimately associated with them. There were a most charming lot of fellows, particularly the C.O. There was a young officer of this Battalion who fell in love with a girl—and a very pretty girl she was His brother officers from the C.O. downwards tried hard to head him off, but it was just as easy to keep a moth away from a candle. He, of course, being poor, soon got into debt, with the inevitable result that he could not pay his Mess bills. The thing was overlooked for a long time, as he promised to settle. Eventually the C.O. gave orders that he was not to use the Mess until he had paid his bills. He was bound by Regulations to do this. Now I mentioned before that this C.O. was a particularly charming man, and his wife was an equally charming woman. They took this young officer into their own bungalow as a guest until such time as he could make good. One night there was a small informal dance given by the Battalion at which the lady was present. Young knew this, and sent a note to the Adjutant imploring to be allowed to attend. The Adjutant, rather annoyed, read it, crumpled it up, and threw it on the floor. Just outside the front Mess verandah was an old 64 pounder emplacement. One of the guests, a little while after the note incident, was in this verandah smoking a cigarette when he heard the sound of a pistol-shot in the direction of the emplacement. It was such an unusual thing at that time of night, indeed at any time, that he told the Adjutant what he had heard. They both went over to investigate, and found young shot through the heart. The sequel to this story is distressing. The boy's mother complained to the authorities at home that her son had been driven to commit his foolish act because of the harsh behaviour of the 0.0. towards him, and demanded vengeance. The C.O. was deprived of his command and his retired pay as well. This was too outrageous even for callous officialdom, and the latter part was rescinded, and he got his £365 a year. Misfortune still dogged his footsteps. He retired with his family to a certain hill station in Southern India. He had two charming young daughters, both of them harum-scarum, most lovable lassies-one of them particularly so, who feared nothing on earth, and she was exceedingly fond of animals, and they of her. One day she came across a big deer-hound and stroked it. It bit her. The dog developed rabies, and in spite of all attention and care, the girl died of hydrophobia. Here was a case of a C.O. who befriended one of his young officers to

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his own undoing, but there are exceptions, of course. Generally, however, an officer, particularly a young officer who shows inclinations to kick over the traces, gets friendly advice, and he is given rope enough amongst his social set to hang any civilian four times over ; but if he insists on going the full limit, he is hung quickly and the Army is well rid of him. ' HARD WORK. imagined for one moment that our life in not be It must Colombo was one continuous round of gaiety and frivolity ; very far from it. We worked hard and we played hard. Military hours in a tropical station usually begin at dawn and finish at 1 p.m., and we were out in the sun most of that time. The merchant in his office had cool clothing, punkahs, and electric fans. His hours were 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., spent in coolness and comfort. Sweating out in the sun, as we soldiers did, a meagre six degrees north of the Equator is a different proposition, and when one had prickly heat it was simply intolerable. I don't know whether all the readers of the Magazine know what prickly heat is, but there must be quite a number who have been in Mesopotamia and have experienced it. If so, I would ask them to favour the Editor with a detailed description of their sensations, language, and attitude towards life generally in such a condition. The report would have to be printed in lurid colours. Briefly, every time you perspire, and that is almost always, tiny little needles, thousands and thousands of them, with red hot points, prick you all over, just a little prick, and leave behind something that itches and tickles, and the process is repeated indefinitely. There were three batteries of the Colombo defences. One on Galle Face, a second at the root of the only breakwater then existing, and a third at Mutwal. These were armed with an old mark 9.2-in. on H.P. or disappearing mountings. These mountings were all the rage in those days, and a nuisance they were—the recoil cylinders were always leaking. Before firing, elaborate pressures had to be taken with gauges. It was most difficult to get the, exact proportions between liquid and air. As often as not on firing I have seen the gun come down with a bump on the recoil stops and shoot away up into the firing position, and then there was nothing for it but to pump the gun down, and that took the detachment, in relays, about twenty minutes. HoWwe loved them ! It was always amusing, however, to see the look of relief on all faces when, having been fired, the gun came down and stayed down. One never knew what any gun would do, and to show how much the designers trusted their design, each lower carriage was fitted with holdingdown clips, and the gun was clipped down after drill or practice.

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Once this was overlooked, and on going down to the Fort the next morning, the Master Gunner found the gun in the firing position, the cover all displaced, and all the pressure out of the recoil cylinder. I am sorry I was not there to hear what he had to say. It would have been illuminating. To remedy this state of affairs would take a fatigue party under his supervision some hours. STATION PRACTICE " FUN." I remember an incident which might have had serious consequences, but did not, and really was rather funny. The occasion was what was known as Station Practice. A little scheme was prepared. All the batteries were manned in accordance with the mobilization table ; the Colonel and his Adjutant were perched aloft in their Fire Command Station, and we all felt that this was war. I was in command of the Breakwater Battery, which was pleasant, as it was only ten minutes' walk from breakfast. The senior Sub. had Mutwal Battery, which was " twa 'oors and a bittock" from breakfast. Whether this had any influence on his mentality that morning I cannot say, but the fact remains that on making his inspection, he omitted to notice that the foresights of his guns had not been properly dropped into their sockets, and this, of course, had the effect of rendering the elevation scale of no value at all for any particular range. He reported all correct to the Fire Commander, and presently the fun began. The orders were that the guns were to be fired at intervals beginning with the righthand gun at Mutwal. Mutwal started, and on account of the afore-mentioned sights, all their shells dropped neatly amongst the shipping in Colombo Harbour. There was considerable commotion, and it seemed to my humorous fancy that all the vessels were trembling from truck to keelson. I put the lid on. There was a big tramp making the harbour, and when she saw what had happened, hesitated. At that moment I mistook an order passed down, and whanged off my guns. The projectiles fell just about 500 yards on the tramp's starboard quarter. She turned tail, put to sea, and did not return until the afternoon. Nothing was said about it, because she had no business to be where she was. The warning signals were up at the Pilot Tower, and she should have stood off until she received permission to enter. The question of the Mutwal sights and my mistaking orders was a different matter—a Regimental matter—and both of us were on the mat. I did not do so badly, because I pleaded extenuating circumstances. Telephones are, notoriously unreliable things (as a matter of fact there was nothing wrong with mine), and on putting up this explanation I saw the Adjutant look at me and put his tongue in his cheek, but

44'

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it worked, so I was admonished to be more careful, and dismissed. What happened to G I don't know ; he was naturally florid, of sandy hair and reddish complexion , but when I saw him later in the Company office he looked like a boiled lobster, and was as mum as an oyster. That is not the only amusing thing that happened that morning. The Governor took it into his head that he would like to inspect a Battery and see the show. As my Battery was only 400 yards from Queen's House (as it then was), he naturally chose it. I was warned of his coming, and had all the men sitting properly at ease, ready to spring to attention. His Excellency entered, followed by two aides, and when they were close to me, I called the Battery to attention and gave a very smart salute just as the Governor reached me. As I did this, one of the aides dug me in the solar plexus with the hilt of his sword, saying as he did so : " Hullo, old top, how are you this morning? " I let out a loud " Ouch ! " and nearly collapsed on H.E., who looked at me and actually laughed. I saw the detachments with their hands over their mouths, and that made me wild ; but I had to see the funny side of it—there was nothing else to do. I felt rather sore, however, as apart from loss of dignity, it is not a pleasant thing to have a hard sword-hilt driven into your Little Mary at 7 a.m. and before breakfast. SALUTES. One of the duties we all disliked greatly was salutes. The saluting battery was on the sea front, to the right of the Pilot Tower, which stood on a mound, and the battery extended almost to the Breakwater. During the monsoon this saluting battery was like a half-tide rock in a heavy sea, spray and water blowing and swirling over the guns and platforms. At a certain season of the year all the navies of the world carried out their reliefs, and there was a neverending procession of foreign men-of-war calling at Colombo, and every one of them meant a salute of twenty-one guns given and returned. Very often men-of-war were reported from the Pilot Tower, the saluting detachments would be turned out, and we would " stand by," and then the ship would turn out to be one of our own, and all stores had to be replaced. I remember a most annoying incident of this kind. We turned out on a report, and the ship was one of our own. I replaced the stores and told the Master Gunner to send the men back to barracks. They had hardly reached these when another man-of-war report came in. Back the men had to come ; do it all over again ; and this time it was a Russian. When the " Mailed Fist " made his famous voyage to the East I returned his salute at Colombo. A funny-looking lot of craft they were, and excited derision, which was just what the Kaiser wanted. From this voyage sprang the late

BYRON HOUSE.

LORD BYRON. (From Dr. Pittendrigh Macgillivray's Model for the Bronze Statue to be erected in the Grounds of the School.)

Born, 22 January, 1788; pupil at the School, 1795-98; died, 19 April, 1824.

DUN HOUSE.

•

PIincipal PATRICK DUN, M.D. (From the painting in the School Hall by George Jameson, 1631.) Principal of Marischal College, 1621 ; mortified the lands of Ferryhill for the maintenance of Four Masters of the School ; died circa 1649,

KEITH

HOUSE.

Field-Marshal JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD KEITH. (1• ron. the painting in possession of the University of Aberdeen—copy in the School Hall.) Born, 1696; Second in Command in Polish Succession War, 1733-35; Russian General, 1737; Field-Marshal under Frederick the Great, 1747; fell at Hochkirch, 14 October, 1758.

MELVIN HOUSE.

JAMES MELVIN, LL.D. (From the painting in the School Hall by James Cassie.)

Born, 1794 ; pupil at the School, 1804-09 ; Under-master, 1821-26 ; Rector, 1826-53 ; died, 28 June, 1853.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

New German Navy. Now there is a very funny story about this visit to Colombo. Our Admiral had to be in harbour to receive this fleet, and, moreover, it is an Admiralty Regulation that if more than a certain number of foreign men-ofwar are in any one of our ports, there must be a proportionate number of our war vessels there also. Now for the story. The Warrant and Petty Officers' Messes of the British Squadron gave a dinner at the Bristol Hotel to their opposite numbers in the German Squadron. Everything went off smoothly and beautifully until the toasts. The Senior W.O. of our people stood up and gave the toast of " The Kaiser," which was duly honoured. The Germans, either from ignorance or some other cause, did not give, or refused to give, the toast of " The Queen." There was silence for a while, then one of our petty officers got to his feet and said, " Now, boys, on your feet ; ye takes yer time from me, puts your fingers down your throats, and hup comes the Kaiser ! " And they did it i I also had the honour (sic) of giving the late King of Siam his salute on the occasion of his visit to Europe. This was one of the most boring times I ever had. He was due on his yacht, which had an unpronounceable name, on the afternoon of one day, but he did not put in an appearance, and we were kept hanging about until dark, cussing this dusky potentate, the men under their breaths, myself and the Master Gunner so that all the world might hear, and all wishing him at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. It was not my turn for duty next day, but as I had been detailed, I was told to carry on and have the detachments down and all ready at reveille next morning. I must mention that salutes are never fired after retreat or before reveille. I had the detachments there early in the morning, and another long wait ensued. Here I took a long shot and sent the men to their breakfast and chanced it. There really was little risk of not being there in time, because he would be reported twenty miles out, and the salute was not due to be fired until his unspeakably-named vessel put her nose over the end of the breakwater ; but I did risk something if the Staff knew that the men had been away for an hour, and we had a particularly obnoxious C.S.O. then, who loved neither the Royal Regiment nor its ways, and nothing delighted him so much as to put something over us, from our C.O. downwards, if he could. SALUTE-FIRING DANGERS. I mentioned some way back that we subalterns always disliked firing salutes. This was not, as might be supposed, because this duty came at odd hours and frequently dislocated our private arrangements. We disliked it because it was dangerous. The guns told off for saluting were old

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64 pounder smooth bores. In course of time the cartridgechamber became honey-combed or pitted with holes. This may appear of small consequence, but very much the contrary was the case. The powder charge was contained in a silk cloth bag, and on discharge this was burned up, but there was always the danger of a piece or pieces sticking in the honeycomb and remaining there smouldering, and when the next charge was rammed home, exploding it and blowing the loading numbers to pieces. To prevent this, a process called " serving the vent " had to be carried out by one of the numbers placing his thumb over the vent in such a way as to effectually seal it and prevent a rush of air through. There was a vent-piece on some guns which served the same purpose. Now British soldiers are proverbially careless in matters that concern their own safety, and they had to be watched very carefully. The officer in charge was solely and absolutely responsible. It was a physical impossibility to be timing intervals between guns with a stop-watch and keeping an eye on detachments at the same time. Furthermore, one had to be some distance away, so as to be visible to all. I used to delegate this duty of seeing the vents served to the Master Gunner, and it was efficiently carried out, but the delegation did not relieve me of one iota of responsibility. In 1887 a Jubilee salute was fired from the saluting battery at Fort Ostenburg, Trincomali. This very thing happened. The vent of one gun was not served, the next charge exploded on being rammed home, and the loading numbers were blown over the rampart and instantly killed. That was why we did not like firing salutes. Once I nearly got myself into a serious scrape over a salute. It came about this way. In course of time I came to be on very good terms with quite a number of captains of P. & O. and British India steamers, and whenever any of my friends came into Colombo, I was always welcome on board to luncheon or dinner. One day, whilst I was on duty, I slipped off to a P. & O. boat and had lunch, when later, being on the saloon deck, I happened to look up to the Pilot Tower and saw the all too familiar and detested man-of-war signal flying. I bolted round to the other side and saw a squadron, without any doubt foreign, about four miles away. I made one dash for the accommodation ladder, fell into a boat, and made the boatman land me at the foot of the Breakwater, where I would be only a short distance from the saluting battery. I had neither belt nor sword on, the insignia of my office, but that had to be risked. To my relief, I saw the detachment already , he of the florid countenance. there under my old friend G I borrowed his sword and belt, and was just in time. G was senior Sub., and ought to have reported me, but those things were not done if they could be avoided. It was a

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near shave, and I freely admit I was rather scared, considering that the C.S.O. I mentioned would have been only too pleased to do his worst, and, of course, I was hopelessly in the wrong. was annoyed, but he was Nothing was heard of it. G loyal, and I registered a vow, and kept it, never to do anything so silly again. A BIG FIRE. In 1898, early in the year, I was officer of the day when an R.A. orderly came to my quarters about 10 p.m. and reported that the fire-alarm had been sounded. I got out of bed and dressed quickly, in the meantime sending an order down to our C.S.M. to turn out the fire piquet. When I got down to our barracks there was no sign of a fire anywhere, but presently some information came along. The Garrison Adjutant sent orders to turn out the whole R.A. Company, and already two companies of the Battalion were paraded. Everybody was mystified, and after a short wait we began to think that some officious "blighter" higher up the scale was showing off, being dressed in a little brief authority, as at that time we were without a G.O.C. and the command of the troops in the Garrison devolved upon the senior Lieut.-Colonel. Enlightenment came at last. There were huge oil mills in a part of the city called Wolfendahl, belonging to Frendenburg, the German Consul. These mills were on fire and blazing furiously, and he had asked for the assistance of the troops. We took our hopeless manual squirts with us and doubled all the way, a good two miles. When we did get there, the scene beggared description. There were large open tanks and hundreds upon hundreds of barrels of oil in these mills, and the place was a roaring mass of flame. There was nothing to be done but to save what could be saved. I remember suggesting blowing one shed up, clearing away the debris, and creating a gap, but the senior military officer was an Infantry man, and the idea of an explosion louder than a rifle shot did not appeal to him. The next morning reliefs were sent up from the Battalion, and our presence was not further required. There were wigs on the green that morning. The O.C. Troops, without whose direct order not a company should have been moved from its parade ground, had been peacefully sleeping in his bungalow all night and knew nothing about what had happened. Unlucky as usual, I was the first to meet the storm—I bent before it, but did not break. Having been up most of the night, I was having a late breakfast when in dashed the O.C. Troops (who was the Senior Lieut.-Colonel and also commanding the Battalion). He started going for me bald-headed, and demanded to know (with embellishments) what I meant by taking my company to a fire outside the military area without orders, etc., etc.

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A pause. " I had orders, Sir." " From whom ? " he demanded. " From the Acting Gartison Adjutant, Sir " (his own Battalion Adjutant). This is the C.O. I mentioned before who later lost his command, and I remarked that he was a really charming man. He grinned, clapped me on the shoulder, said, " All right, that lets you out," and then he bolted and made a bee line for his own Battalion office and his Adjutant. Frendenburg, the German Consul, behaved very well. He sent a large cheque to our C.O. and the Battalion C.O. to make good damages to clothing, etc., which the men would otherwise have had to replace out of their pay. NEWARA ELIYA. In 1897 it was decided to form a sanitorium for troops up in the hills at Newara Eliya, and this was done. Meeting one day one of the Medical Officers who came out with me on the " Dtmera," I discussed this innovation with him and remarked " I wonder who the lucky man will be to go up in charge of the detachment ? " and said jocularly, " I wish it was me." I did not stop to consider the grammar. A few days afterwards, much to my surprise, I found myself detailed in General Orders to proceed to Newara Eliya in command of the convalescents. My Major was furious, had me up in the office, all the officers present, and the office closed. I got flayed : the text was that I had gone behind his back, that I should have put my application in in the ordinary way through him, etc., and had treated him with contempt. He was really angry. It was in vain that I protested that I had done none of these things, and proceeded to relate the circumstances, but he would not listen. Then I said " If that's the way you look at it, Sir, I don't want to go." Said he, " You d—d well will go, Sir. I order you to go," and so I went. I never saw the little man afterwards, for during my absence at Newara Eliya he was transferred to the home establishment. But we parted as amiably as could be when I left for the hills. He got over it very quickly. The two months at the Ceylon Hill Station were quite the most enjoyable during the whole of my seven-and-a-half years' continuous foreign service. The arrival was not promising. Rain was falling in torrents ; it was pitch dark ; we had been travelling since 7.30 a.m. ; all were hungry and tired ; there was a four-mile march along an unknown road ; we did not know from Adam where the barracks were when we reached Newara Eliya ; and the officers' baggage could not be brought up that night. However, we found the barracks, got the men into them, settled them down to supper, the Canteen opened, and they were happy. The question then arose, What were we to do ? By " we " I mean the M.O. and myself. We were soaked to the skin, baggageless, tired,

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and hungry. At last we decided to make for the Hill Club. Here we found a good old English welcome, and such members as were in residence ransacked their wardrobes to provide us with a change of clothing. My change was a pair of white flannel trousers much too wide in the waist and much too long in the leg, a flannel shirt and collar, and a coat much too large for me. All the members present were, of course, dressed for dinner, and there was much merriment at my appearance. However, we got outside a good dinner, and afterwards sat in front of a blazing wood fire, which was divine happiness after more that two years' sweltering in Colombo. The Hill Club was modelled, furnished, and managed on the lines of an English country house. The food was of first-rate quality, the cooking was worthy of the food, charges were moderate, and service excellent. What we did appreciate was the food. Lest it may be thought by some that too much emphasis is given to the food question, let such critics place themselves in our position. Let them suppose that they had been fed for two-and-a-half years in a tropical climate on tough draught bullock, stringy goat— yclept mutton, tinned Danish butter melted to the consistency of lard in a frying-pan, tinned sausage, tinned bacon, rissoles dry as sawdust and just about as nourishing—in short, tinned stuff ad nauseam, not forgetting that abomination, tinned salmon. Let them then be transported to a hill station in a temperate climate and find there all the decent English comforts to which they may have been accustomed, and no prickly heat, or fever, or any of the numerous abominations which are the part of the soldier and civilian in these outposts of the Empire ; in short, as Micawber would say, they would find health, peace, and plenty, and criticisms would die out at once. Newara Eliya is a large plain or plateau approached at each end through steep passes, one from Nanoya and the other the Rambodde Pass, and walled in on one side by the Oliphant Range and on the other by a range which contains the culminating peak of the Ceylon mountain system, " Pedrotallagalla," 9,000 odd feet above sea level. Coming up from Nanoya to Newara Eliya, one ascends nearly 2,000 feet in four miles. Since I left, a light railway has been constructed from Nanoya to Newara Eliya. The Hill Club was the focus of all bachelors and grass widowers belonging to the official and planting classes who came to Newara Eliya for the dry season, i.e., from December to March, and occasionally the tournament for the Ceylon Lawn Tennis Championships was played out in the courts of the Hill Club. There was also a very excellent inland golf course, and the streams round about were well stocked with trout imported from New Zealand or home. These trout

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flourished well, but much expense was incurred in payment of watchers or guards in the endeavour to prevent a favourite little pastime of the local native, viz., dynamiting the pools. A planter came into the Club one day while I was there with about a dozen fish in his creel, the smallest not less than one pound, and the largest four-and-a-half pounds. Any fished hooked and landed weighing less than a pound had to be thrown back. At the top of the Nanoya—Newara Eliya Pass, where the road debouches on the plain, stood a place called Baker's Farm. It was here that the late Sir Samuel Baker, the wellknown explorer, lived in the early 'seventies, and if any reader of this article wishes to get a first-rate idea of sport in the Highlands of Ceylon and read of some stirring sporting adventures, let him go to the Free Library and ask for Baker's book, " With Rifle and Hound in Ceylon." At that time Newara Eliya was practically a terra incognita to all except those planters who had proprietary estates in or around the district, and the Ceylon Railway had not then been extended to Nanoya. I think, but am not sure, that it was in the time of Governor Sir Godfrey Langdon that this lovely spot first began to come into vogue. I think this, because Lady Langdon introduced there a plant called " Lantana," which is now almost as great a botanical pest as the rabbit is an animal pest in Australia. " Lantana " is as obstinate and as prolific as the dock, but unlike the dock, it has some claims to beauty, and so far as I remember it looks something like a large wild currant bush with a small pink blossom. The climate of Newara Eliya is temperate during the winter months, i.e., during the time the North-East monsoon is blowing. During the South-West monsoon it is a place to be avoided, as it is then either deluged with rain or shrouded in mist. There are, all the same, some permanent residents, and at one time there was an excellent English school for the sons of such as were unable to afford to send them to England or Scotland ; but after about twenty years' existence it closed down. It was languishing at the time I was in Newara Eliya. Europeans brought up in an Eastern country like India or Ceylon, who marry there, die out after the third generation absolutely. This fact had no doubt something to do with the failure of the school. The rubber boom also began about this time, and many planters who up to then had not more than a couple of rupees and a bunch of estate keys to jingle in their pockets, suddenly began to grow rich. Many made their pile and retired to the more congenial but more uncertain climate of the Old Country and settled down there, and their sons followed their father's steps to the old schools.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

A Visit to Venezuela and Colombia. JOHN Ross ESSON (1893-97) is at present engaged in an extensive business trip through Central and South America. Before setting out, he paid a flying visit to Aberdeen, and, as in duty bound, reported himself to the Secretary of the F.P. Club. The latter, with an eye on prospective " copy " for the Magazine, suggested that the tour would obviously furnish plentiful material for one or more contributions to its pages, and Esson kindly promised to send letters to it from time to time. The following was written on 11th September from the York Hotel, Bogota, Republic of Colombia, and will, we feel sure, be considered exceptionally interesting :— " I have visited many places since last I saw you and it would require a far abler pen than mine to adequately describe them, but if the following notes he anything like what you want for the Magazine, you are very welcome to them. " Before endeavouring to describe anything, let me say that I have got another recruit for the Club in the person of HAROLD W. TURNER, who was at the Grammar from 1910 to 1912. His address at that time was 74 Rubislaw Den North, and his address now is Apartado 366, Bogota. He holds a position here with Carvalho, Urquhart & Co. THE CAPITAL OF VENEZUELA. " The first place of importance in which I spent a few weeks was Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. The port for Caracas is La Guaira, the distance between the two places being about 23 miles. Caracas stands at an altitude of 3,000 feet above sea level, and a very fine railway, owned and worked entirely by English capital, connects the two places. The scenery on this line, which winds itself up and over the hills, is extraordinarily grand. I had the privilege of going from one end to the other in an open inspection car, and in this way one can appreciate the difficulties and dangers with which the constructors of this line had to contend. It is a work which provides a lasting testimony to the excellence of British railway engineering. " Caracas is a delightful city. The climate is temperate-during the day it is sometimes a little hot, but always cool during the night. Most of the buildings are low, one-storey houses, built on the ' patio ' principle—that is, having the living-rooms built round an open courtyard, where generally flowers are grown. During my visit General Gomez was installed as President and there were great celebrations for this event. There is a fine square there, where a band plays on certain evenings. This provides an opportunity for the youth and beauty of Caracas to show itself off. The

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Venezuelans are a most kindly and courteous people, extremely anxious to help the foreigner in their midst. " I didn't meet any Grammar F.P.s in Caracas, or in Venezuela for that matter, but I met the next best thing— an Aberdeen man—in the person of Mr. Anderson, son of Chief Constable Anderson, who holds a high position in one of the Banks. I saw a good deal of Anderson and was much indebted to him for assistance he gave me. " A railway owned by German capital connects Caracas with Valencia, the centre of the cotton industry in Venezuela. Valencia is hotter, and the hotel accommodation poorer than in the Capital. Another English railway runs from there to Puerto Cabello. On one section of this railway there is a rack where the gradient is 8 per cent. The scenery all along this line is very pretty, and about midway there is a famous sulphur spring, which is visited by invalids from many parts. At Puerto Cabello there is a large meat-factory. At present it is practically shut down, as the cattle industry in Venezuela is in the midst of a severe crisis. The outskirts of Puerto Cabello are very pleasant, and there are some nice residences (quintas) there, but the Port itself is extremely hot and dusty. MARACAIBO AND CURAcAO.

" From Puerto Cabello I went to Maracaibo, by way of Curacao. The bar at Maracaibo is very shallow, and does not permit the passage of any large boats. It is necessary, therefore, to go to Curacao and thence take a smaller boat. I spent only a few hours there on my way to Maracaibo, as I found I could get a passage by a Norwegian steamer which was leaving shortly after I arrived. I had a most comfortable trip on this boat, and duly arrived in Maracaibo late one Sunday afternoon. I have visited a good few hot places and Maracaibo is one of the hottest, but is singularly free from mosquitoes. It is the centre of the oil business in Venezuela, and is full of Americans looking for oil, and many pretending they have found it ! It is the most active of Venezuelan cities, and business is carried on with great keenness. This country is now developing rapidly under the Government of General Gomez, who encourages foreign enterprise and gives reasonable terms to capitalists who are willing to help the country forward. " There are many Scottish names to be found in Venezuela, such as Macgregor, Macpherson, etc. Some of the owners of these names do not speak a word of English. They are the descendants of the fighting men who battled in the British Legion for the cause of Venezuela. " To get to Colombia from Maracaibo one has to return to Curacao. I believe there is some way of going overland, but the journey is a long and arduous one on mule-back.

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I remained in Curacao a few days. It is a quaint little Dutch island with rather pretty houses. It is very dry, and has little or no vegetation. There is an ostrich farm on the island, which is very interesting to visit, and there is quite a good trade done in the feathers. I also visited a famous natural cave at Hato, another part of the island. Practically everyone in Curacao speaks English, but the natives have a peculiar ' patois ' of their own called ' Papimiento,' which is made up of Dutch, Spanish, and English all mixed. " I went from Curacao to Puerto Colombia by Dutch mail boat, and I may say that these Dutch liners are very comfortable, and cater for the comforts of passengers far more than the Red ' D' American Line, or even some English lines I know. Puerto Colombia is close to the mouth of the Magdalena River, the highway of Colombia. An English railway connects it with Barranquilla, which is the starting-point for the river boats. This is a frightfully hot, dusty, and mosquito-infested place, but all these drawbacks must be endured if one wishes to penetrate to the more pleasant places of Colombia. " I made a trip over to Santa Marta, the centre of the banana business. It is another place which it is good to be away from. I went to the Sierra Nevada, for which Santa Marta is the starting-point, and I had a very enjoyable time on a coffee plantation 4,300 feet up on the mountains. It took five hours on mule-back to get there, but it was well worth it. You go up the mountains by a narrow trail, through forests and valleys, amidst the most glorious tropical and mountain scenery. The climate at that altitude is perfect, and you would hardly credit that only four or five hours' travel separates you from such a sweltering spot as Santa Marta. 1000 KILOMETRES BY HYDROPLANE.

" Quite an appreciable amount of coffee comes from this quarter, but since the United Fruit Co. came on the scene and paid ' peons ' high prices for handling bananas, these peons don't care to work on coffee estates ; consequently labour is scarce, and crops are often partially lost through not having enough hands for the picking. From Santa Marta I returned to Barranquilla to wait for a few days for the hydroplane to take me to Girardot. The journey up the Magdalena by river-boat at this season takes about ten days from Barranquilla to Girardot. The river from Barranquilla to Dorada is known as the Lower Magdalena. At Dorada one passes from boat to train, by which means Beltran is reached. This is another English enterprise, called La Dorada Railway. Beltran is the initial port of the Higher Magdalena, and from there one proceeds by another boat to Girardot, from which point there is railway communication with Bogota, the beautiful capital of the Republic.

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" There is a weekly service of hydroplanes between Barranquilla and Girardot. One can leave the former port at 6.30 a.m. and arrive in the latter at 4 p.m. the same afternoon. I saved eight or nine days by doing the journey in this way. It was a magnificent trip, and I don't suppose there is another regular aeroplane service in the world to compare with it. We did the 1,000 odd kilometres in about 8 hours' flying time. We stopped at several river ports, and had lunch at Puerto Berrio. From Honda to Girardot we flew high to get over the mountains, but the average height would have been about 1,100 metres. THE CAPITAL OF COLOMBIA.

" After a night in Girardot. , a wretched place and very hot, I took train for Bogota. From the starting point to Facetativa the railway gradually climbs to a height of 8,000 feet above sea-level. At Facetativa you reach a wonderful plateau, fairly flat, the vegetation, crops, and even herds reminding you of home. Here the climate is lovely, but the rarefied air at this height does not suit everyone. It is now a quick run to Bogota, which must surely be one of the most inaccessible capitals in the world. It is a fine city, having about 150,000 inhabitants, and all modern conveniences, except fire-places. I have only been in one house where I saw a fire. That belongs to an English gentleman here. At times, especially during the evenings, it is quite cold enough for artificial heat, although in the tropics. There is a fine country club with a splendid golf course. I visited this club the first time with STANLEY GAITER, who is a worthy member of the F.P. Club. He holds a position in one of the English Banks here, and has two other Scotsmen as his colleagues, one from Dufftown and one from Kemnay. This Bank seems to show good taste in the choice of its officials ! Gaiter thoroughly enjoys his golf, and enters into the social life of the community with considerable zest. I dined with him one evening, and it was through him I met Turner. They live in the same house. Bogota has a goodly number of Britishers as residents, and is a very gay place. There are dances, teas, and dinners galore. The treatment I have had here from Colombians and foreigners alike has left nothing to be desired. " If by chance any of your readers should be proceeding here, I would advise them to go to this hotel (York Hotel), which has recently been opened by an English lady. After the places which are dignified by the name hotel in other parts of Colombia, it is very pleasant to find a clean, comfortable, well-furnished establishment like this. There are many schemes for development in Colombia, and there can be little doubt that it will be one of the countries of the future. " If any reader has particular interest in any of the coun-

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tries I am visiting, or thinks of making a tour through any of them, I'll be pleased to assist in any way possible." [NOTE.—As the Magazine goes to press, another letter has arrived from Esson. He writes from Christobal, Panama Canal Zone, and describes his passage through the Canal en route for Costa Rica. We hope to print this letter in our next issue. Ed., A. G. S. Mag.] •

Two Whites on a Red Sea Island. Captain CHARLES A. HENDRICK (1906-1915), 41st Dogras, Indian Army, recently moved from Palestine to Aden. His regiment is now part of the Aden Garrison, but he himself is situated with a half-company on the island of Kamaran in the Red Sea, some 250 miles away. In the course of a recent letter home Captain Hendrick writes :— " Here we are in Kamaran, a nice little island in the Red Sea. We called at Berbera in Somaliland on the way, and dropped E and his Company for some little war they are having there. Then we went round various lighthouses and dropped water and food for the men, then to Perim, where we dropped P and a platoon, and then on here. Perim is a heap of stones with a coaling station and a small village. Here we are on sand, but fairly firm. It is terribly hot, and flies and camel ticks are bad, but otherwise it is rather nice. There is a big native village, but not a shop of any kind. The island is about twelve miles by four of solidified shell and coral, with a layer of sand and groundshell. There are a lot of pilgrim camps for the Mecca pilgrims, a water-condensing plant (two now, as there is a new one being built), our house, and a camp. W---, `The Military Administrator,' and I live together. Nice five-room bungalow, double roof and straw verandah. . . . There are only two white people on the island, W and I. . . . There is an Indian lady doctor for women pilgrims, an Indian pilgrim doctor, a Greek pilgrim doctor, a supplies doctor, a post officer, and various military clerks and half-caste assistants. There is shooting, and later on, very good fishing. We have sailing and rowing in native dug-out canoes—great fun, quite exciting, till one learns the balance. . . . We have had fine weather for the last few days. Before, we had thunderstorms every day, and that cooled and cleared the atmosphere ; it was as cool as could be, 80° or so. A few degrees make all the difference, because, when it is 90° or over, it is so fearfully wet with sea air all round that it appears hotter than it is. 100° here feels as bad as 120° in India, and one never stops sweating."

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A Unique Motor-Cycle Tour. Many F.P.s and present pupils will remember the Serbian boys who were at the School during the War, and how interested we were in their native land, and in the retreat of the Serbian Army through the mountains of Albania to the Adriatic Sea. I had often wished to meet the boys again and to visit the places about which they spoke, but it was not till the summer of this year that I was able to fulfil my desire. I determined that after visiting Belgrade I would attempt to follow the route of the Great Retreat on a motor cycle, a project which was all the more attractive as it led through country which had previously been unvisited by petrol vehicles of any kind. I will not attempt to describe in full all the interesting and exciting incidents into which this decision led me, but will try to give some idea, both of the country and of my own experiences by quoting extracts from my diary, which was kept very fully from day to day. SERBIAN F.P.S IN BELGRADE. 13th June.—Belgrade at last—a most welcome sight. It is 8 a.m. on Tuesday, and since I left Dover on Saturday morning I have been travelling, without a break, through Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Jugo-Slavia. Belgrade, which the inhabitants call " Little Paris," stands on a hill overlooking the junction of the Danube and the Sava. Certainly the main street with its palaces and hotels justifies the name, but the by-ways are still squalid and semi-Eastern. After two hours' wandering, I arrive at the Military Academy and meet two old friends—Miodrag Yovanovitch and Dragisha Yankovitch, resplendent in scarlet breeches and sky-blue tunics. I go home with the former, and find myself the guest of honour. A girl brings a jug of water, which she, pours over my hands, and then dries them with a towel. Then Turkish sweetmeats are served, my glass is filled with cognac, my host's tobacco and cigarette papers are passed to me and I valiantly attempt to roll a cigarette. In the evening we go to " Moscov," the Society café of Belgrade, and I am introduced to goodness knows how many officers in gold lace and swords by my host the Colonel. We sip iced raspberry juice and rakia till 11 p.m., and then return home to bed. A CRASH. 27th June.—I waken at dawn (3.30 a.m.), wash in a stream, and set off. Before midday I pass through Nish, the roads being very good and level. In the afternoon I climb hour after hour up the beautiful Morava Gorge, and at about 7 p.m. reach Kumanovo. While I am descending

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the sharp incline beyond the Kumanovo plateau, a sudden thunderstorm bursts and covers the heavy dust—here quite three inches deep—with a slippery layer of mud. I am travelling at over 25 miles per hour, and any fierce application of the brakes would be disastrous, so I must hold tight and chance it. But a sharp curve is too much for me, and I crash off the road among the rocks. There is very little personal damage, but the machine is in a sorry state—petrol pipe fractured, carrier broken, stand twisted, and petrol tank loosened from the frame. Still the engine is O.K., and I push the machine to the nearest station and take the train for the remaining fifteen kilometres to Skoplje. Here I get my first experience of a Serbian hotel. Travellers, beware ! I'd sooner sleep in a muddy ditch. All night I stride up and down the room waiting for dawn, while my bed serves for a mass-meeting of a peculiarly voracious type of bug. [Note.— Three days were spent at Skoplje repairing the machine.] A GAY NIGHT IN VELES. 4th July.—American Hospital, Veles.—To-night the hospital holds a " prasnik " or celebration for Independence Day. I work all day helping the staff to prepare the house and gardens, and get the refreshments ready. The yard in front of the garage will be the scene of the dance, and we fill up the holes and irregularities on the ground, and hang acetylene flares to light the scene. At 7 p.m. the guests begin to arrive : officers of the garrison, worthies of the town and their women folk, and a great rabble of villagers, to whom I am not introduced. Shortly after 8 p.m. the band arrives, and as darkness falls soon here, the dance begins by the light of a large bright moon. Hands are joined all round, and the swaying rhythmic step of the Kola begins. " Serbianka," "Makedonka," " Adrianople "—each Kola with a different tune and a dif ferent step. After the first dance there is a silence while we listen to the mezzuin from a near-by minaret. All round is a babble of tongues, for this is Macedonia--a mixture of many races and many creeds. One is liable to be addressed in German, French, Slavonic, Greek, Bulgarian, or Turkish. Towards midnight the moon sinks, the flares are lighted, and the scene becomes more charming still—bright uniforms, gay dresses, pretty girls dancing just now a Kola of the most intricate description. Perhaps a hundred people have joined hands, and the long line is twisting and writhing like a great coiled serpent. It is dawn when I crawl into my hammock, pull over the mosquito net, and fall asleep. OVER THE PASS TO MONASTIR.

5th July.—Every night at Veles I have watched the lightning playing among the peaks of the Babuna, but to-day the heights are clear. Off at 8 a.m. (rather sleepy), and negotiate the long, slow ascent to the foothills by mid-day,

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when I lunch off a hunk of cheese and lie for an hour during the great heat up to my neck in a pool in a stream. Hardly have I started when a hot blast of wind blows down from the direction of the Shar Dagh (10,010 feet), whipping up the sand and dust into a great sand-spout, which comes whirling along, forcing me to take refuge in a shepherd's hut. Another 10 kilometres brings me to the great basin which lies below the pass. From here the summit, nearly 4,000 feet high and a clear 2,000 feet above, is clearly visible about three miles away, yet the road winds and doubles over twenty times as it creeps up the throat of the pass—in many places impassable and blocked with stones and the remains of a light railway laid by the Austrians. It is nearly 4 p.m. before I stand on the summit and see the plains of Prilep far below. The descent is steeper but shorter, and I reach the town just as dusk is falling, and have dinner at the Hotel American. Then off again by moonlight over unending mud flats on the worst roads I have struck yet. The jolting is fearful, and my wrists are aching almost unbearably. It is 11 p.m. when the noise of my engine turns out the guard at Bitolj (Monastir), and midnight before I find a bed at a clean Kaphana. FUN IN THE NEUTRAL ZONE.

14th July.—A day of adventure indeed. Up at 4 a.m. and find two soldiers, armed to the teeth, awaiting me downstairs. It is a long, steep ascent up a narrow gorge to the frontier post, yet I get there and have some breakfast and a sleep on the O.C.'s bed before they arrive, their horses almost done in. I listen patiently while I am told for about the twentieth time that I shall assuredly be shot, then we drink each other's health in vile rakia, salute, and I go off. This is the famous Neutral Zone, the " forbidden lands " of which I have heard so much. Ten kilometres wide, it shelters the bandits and escaped criminals from both frontiers, and is a place about which many grisly tales are told. Once a road ran across it, but it is now covered with long grass and stunted bushes, and I marvel how I escaped breaking my neck, as I rushed across it at the greatest speed I could muster. For some time the track runs across a level plateau, but then it plunges steeply down into a wonderful gorge leading to the Albanian frontier, 2,000 feet below. And here the fun begins, and I am made unpleasantly aware that the tales of the Neutral Zone are true. My speed, however, is too much for the marksmen, and beyond removing a portion of my sun helmet, they do no damage at all. Fifteen minutes later I run full tilt into an Albanian frontier patrol, and nearly get shot in earnest before I can stop my machine. . . . (2 p.m.) I am given a great reception at the frontier post and have to tell my story over and over again. I am plied with food and drink ad lib. (and a bit more), and have to start up my machine

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again and again for the amusement of the officers, who insist on having a grand race, horses against cycle, which I win, amid the enthusiastic cheers of the garrison. ONE BANDIT LESS.

15th July.—. . . At 6 p.m. we start off across the hills, I riding my horse beside the officer in charge. . . . As we pass the mouth of the gorge, there is some firing, but no one is hit. Just before dusk we shoot up a hawk-faced fellow with drooping moustachios, the very picture of the traditional bandit. I keep a heavy silver ring from one of his fingers as a souvenir. I hope he is the beggar that spoiled my sun helmet. . . . Back to the barracks (Kjukus), and order a chicken for dinner. It is served without knife or fork, so I eat it d l'Albanaise. Another dish of heaven knows what, Turkish coffee and rakia, and I turn in. In the officers' mess one sits cross-legged on mats, and when bed-time comes, a blanket is brought and one lies down in the same spot. But what with the mosquitoes and a sort of high-power flea, I cannot sleep, so I trot round and chat to the sentries in Serbian till dawn, when the Albanian insect kindly goes to sleep. AN OFFICIAL RECEPTION.

Up and down goes 16th July.—Off at 6 a m the trail in violently steep ascents and descents across the most beautiful mountain country I have ever seen. The surface gets worse and worse, and finally becomes a narrow donkey trail winding across the face of cliffs and ravines at a height of over 5,000 feet. At times the Shkumbor river can be seen, 3,000 feet below, and at long last the trail drops sharply down to the Shkumbor ford. A peasant lends me two donkeys and straps my machine on to one. The brute wants to lie down in the middle, and in my attempts to prevent it, I slip off the high wooden saddle and descend into the water, but the bike is saved, and I soon dry in the scorching sun. A slightly better trail follows the bank of the river, and at 3.30 I roll into El Basan. News of my exploit has preceded me, and I am almost overwhelmed. I meet the Governor and Prefect of Police, and am rushed off to a big house and find that a reception has been prepared for me. A band plays " God Save The King" as I enter, and I am introduced to dozens of people. The entertainment goes on till midnight, when I am very glad to retire to my room in the citadel, placed at my disposal by the Colonel. A soldier servant washes my hands and feet, and sleeps across the doorway all night. DURAZZO. 18th July.—Durazzo at last ! It seems almost too good to be true. I wander round the old Roman ruins, for this is old Dyrrachium, and watch the sun sink over the blue

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Adriatic. I am peculiarly at peace with the world. I have covered 630 miles from Belgrade, 250 miles of which is entirely new for petrol vehicles, and the crossing of the Neutral Zone is regarded here as something of a feat. True, I am in a sorry state. The remains of my machine can barely puff along at 5 miles p.h. (I have just sold it for five gold Napoleons). I myself am a comic sight. I have a beard and moustache, my clothes are in rags, my toes peep through my boots. A cartridge belt, my revolver, and hunting knife make me look like a brigand myself, and the bullet-hole through my battered sun-helmet completes the picture. I call on the Consul, who screws in his eye-glass and observes that he is particularly d—d. Then to sleep in a clean bed at the Hotel Royal. P.S.—There is an interesting street in Durazzo called " Robert Cecil Street." 23rd July.-7.30 p.m.—Victoria Station. Here endeth the trip. Including the return trip via Brindisi and Modane, the entire ground covered between Friday, 9th June, and Sunday, 23rd July, was almost 5,000 miles. Owing to the state of foreign exchanges the whole trip cost only £22. Motor-cycle enthusiasts might be interested in the machine. It was a McKenzie lightweight two-stroke. A heavier machine, I am convinced, would be knocked to pieces on the. appalling roads. A quotation from Shakespeare describes them perfectly :— " O Woe, thy canopy is dust and stones ! " KENNETH M. ROBERTSON (1907-18).

An Elephant Hunt in Uganda. SIMON DOUGLAS Ross* (1914-19), in a recent letter from Balmoral Estate, Masindi, Uganda, gives the following account of an elephant hunt on his plantation :- As you may know, I have been in those parts for eighteen months now, running a coffee plantation, or shamba as we call it here. The life is strenuous and interesting, but has little variety to break its monotony. Thus it was with no feeling of annoyance that I was disturbed at breakfast last Saturday morning with the word that elephants had been " jazzing" amongst the coffee, tearing up the native food, and otherwise making a nuisance of themselves on the shamba a mile and a half away. Within half an hour I was on their trail, which led in the direction of the neighbouring forest. Single file we went—a tracker in front, a gunbearer and headman behind—into the elephant grass, which stands

WILLIAM HARKINS. Dux of the School and Gold Medallist (Classical), 1922 ; Secretary and Treasurer, Literary and Debating Society ; President, Orchestral Society.

GEORGE M. PIRIE. Dux of the School and Gold Medallist (Modern), 1922 ; All-Round Trophy Medallist ; Prefect ; Cricket Captain ; Vice-President, Literary and Debating Society.

ABERDEEN GRAMMAR SCHOOL 1st XI, 1922. Mr. D. MacGregor. A. D. Mackintosh. E. H. Manthei. C. Anderson. A. J. Margach. K. M. Finlayson. J. Davidson. A. W Grafton (Secy.). G. M. Pink (Capt.). C. A. G. Savidge. W. R. Hepburn. W. G. Macmillan.

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twelve to fifteen feet high, and through which it is impossible to pass in the ordinary course of things. Now, however, a well-beaten path marked the exeunt of the elephants. It was a relief to reach the forest, for the grass isn't the healthiest spot to meet invaders such as we were following, and, furthermore, we were literally drenched with the dew that hadn't yet been dried up. " Moving through the forest is hard work—meaning as it does splashing through streams and mud holes, jumping fallen trees, tripping over undergrowth, and restraining profane language—so that by the time an hour had elapsed, and when there was no sight or sound of our quarry, I got heartily ' fed up' and felt inclined to turn back. The tracker kept pushing on, however, and presently stopped to whisper that he could hear them. He was right, too ; for when we had moved closer, we could make out about half-a-dozen browsing under the trees. To me the two most striking things in connexion with elephants are the continual rumbling of their internal organs, and their shortsightedness. On a former occasion two others (Europeans) and myself approached within twelve yards of a herd and watched them for some considerable time without their having the faintest suspicion of our presence. " This time, however, we were still more than twenty yards off when the foremost animal—a bull—raised his trunk suspiciously, and gave a warning sniff. I gave him three in succession, intended for the heart, but apparently the heart wasn't there, for Mr. Elephant dashed off with a speed one could not believe without seeing, in true elephantine fashion. The second in line (which turned out to be a female) then received my attention, and on being struck once, she turned round and came straight for us. It was the thrill of the day, and I caught a glimpse of my three porters scattering, and I, too, sought the shelter of a friendly tree. A shot between the eyes stopped her, and a second in the same place made her crumple up. Then it was we understood the frenzy of her attack, for as she sank back, she clutched at a baby with her front feet and died with it grasped between her knees. . . . " Next morning they brought in the baby elephant, and rejoicing and feasting among the natives lasted the following two days. Our pet has been in captivity already a week— we feed him on porridge and milk and potato soup !—so I have high hopes of being able to baptize him as ' Stanley, The First Tame African Elephant ' ! "

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We must always endeavour to carry on the good work which has been started by those who have gone before us, and to keep the flag of the good old School flying. Hence these notes. * * * One of our most pleasant duties is to congratulate the Cricket Team of last year on their very creditable performance. Although they did not set the heather on fire to start with, yet, as time wore on and they had some practice together, they soon struck a winning vein. The batting and bowling averages appear on another page. * .* * On Friday, 29th September, the School had the privilege of listening to a lecture by Mr. Whelen, an official in the Council of the League of Nations. Mr. Whelen gave a very clear and impressive address, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all. We were also honoured with the presence of Lord and Lady Aberdeen. Lord Aberdeen at the close spoke a few words on the subject, and thanked Mr. Whelen for his very interesting address. Colonel Dawson and Rev. Professor Pittendrigh were also present as representatives of the Aberdeen Education Authority. * * * There was a meeting of the Upper School in Room I on Thursday, 7th September, to elect the officials of the Literary and Debating Society for the present session. Mr. Munson very kindly took the Chair. The Secretary has been successful in compiling a most interesting and attractive Syllabus, and we hope that the School will turn out in large numbers to the meetings on Friday evenings. * * * Something new has occurred in the history of the School. A system has been inaugurated whereby the School is divided into four " Houses." The names of the Houses are Byron, Dun, Keith, and Melvin. Byron House derives its name from the most famous pupil of the School. Dr. Patrick Dun, the most generous of the School's benefactors, gives his name to the second House ; the third is called after Dr. James Melvin, one of the most famous Rectors the School has ever had ; and the fourth commemorates Field-Marshal James Keith, the most distinguished military name in the

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School's annals. A trophy is to be awarded to the House gaining most points throughout the year in School work, cricket, football, and the various other activities of the School. * * * This scheme of the division of the School into Houses has many advantages. It will make the younger members feel that they belong to a social body and not merely to the Aberdeen Grammar School. It will create a keen, healthy rivalry amongst the boys, and will gp far towards improving the general standard of games and the moral discipline of the School. Throughout the School the scheme is received with the greatest enthusiasm, and in particular among the lower classes. It is no uncommon sight in a lower-school class-room to see the youngsters engaged in an inter-House " scrap," rolling on the floor on the top of each other, each having as his war-cry the name of the House to which he belongs. Each House has three House-Masters, and a HouseCaptain, who is picked from the senior boys of the School. The following are the names of the House-Masters and HouseCaptains :— HOUSE-MASTERS.

Dun. Byron. Dr. McLeod. Mr. Murison. Mr. Paterson. Mr. Hyslop. Mr. Soutter. Mr. Forbes.

Melvin. Keith. Dr. Middleton. Mr. Mackie. Mr. Hay. Mr. Henry. Mr. Cormack. Mr. Macrae.

HOUSE-CAPTAINS.

N. Wright.

C. A. G. Savidge. K. Matthew. J. P. Weir. *

The Library is open once again, and although a goodly number have joined, yet we think that, in a School such as ours, the membership ought to be larger. May we take this opportunity of appealing for more members? The Librarians wish to express their thanks to the gentlemen who have so kindly presented books to the Library. An addition to the list of books has been made by the Librarians, and they hope this will help to attract some who are not yet members. * * * The Library is very deficient in books suitable for boys between the ages of ten and fifteen. We are sure boys possess books no longer used by them which would be thankfully received by the Librarians. Mr. Murison has very kindly presented to the Library twelve books, and for these the Librarians are very grateful. Their gratitude would be extended to any who cared to follow his example. * * * Excursions took place, to the fore. The Art Club is still as usual, on Saturday mornings, and some very satisfactory

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and creditable work was done, as was shown by the exhibition given in the Gymnasium after prize-giving on 30th June. We hope the membership of the Club will steadily be augmented, until it forms one of the chief activities in the School. * * * Rugby has again commenced, and although there are numerous changes in the team this year, we are hopeful that it will still uphold the good name of the School on the " Rugger" field. Only five of the " old brigade " are back, but we trust the " new recruits" to fill nobly the places of those who have gone before them. * * * The School Orchestra, we are glad to hear, is to be continued again this year. Practices have been held in the School with the most satisfactory results. We wish the Orchestra a most successful and pleasant season. * * * On Friday, 13th October, the School was addressed in Hall by Mr. Young of Edinburgh and Mr. Kerr of Greenock, both speaking on behalf of the Juvenile Organizations of Scotland. They strongly advised the boys to join some juvenile club, either the Boys' Brigade or the Boy Scouts, and to learn to devote their spare time to serving others, and not to use it merely for their own enjoyment. They both spoke very earnestly and strongly on the matter, and one could not but be impressed by their speeches. Mr. Kerr, who is the famous Scottish cricketer, received a great ovation when introduced to the School by the Rector, and Mr. Young, who has been doing good work amongst the poorer class of boys in Edinburgh, also received a very hearty welcome. * * * The School extends a most cordial welcome and its warmest congratulations to its now famous F.P. explorer, James W. S. Marr, on his return from his voyage of adventure on the " Quest." " Boxo" Man, as he was called in Scouting circles, was a popular figure when at School, and we are sure every member of the School followed his career on board the " Quest " with the deepest interest, and read with great pride the satisfactory reports sent home about him. * * * On Wednesday, 1st November, the School was addressed by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Donald Fraser from Central Africa. He was speaking in connection with the great missionary campaign being carried on throughout Scotland. During the course of a most interesting and entertaining address Dr. Fraser told us of the life in Central Africa and of the many adventures he had had. He spoke of the good work which was being done amongst the tribes out there, and of the need for more missionaries. He hoped that in the course

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of a few years, the School would be sending out some of its present pupils as missionaries. Dr. McLeod, in thanking Dr. Fraser for his most impressive speech, spoke of the danger's which had to be undergone by these missionaries, and of the great courage necessary to carry out their work. On the call of Dr. McLeod three rousing School cheers, cheers which the Grammar School alone can give, were given to Dr. Fraser.

Mr. Maitland Bisset, a Former Pupil of the School, gave a most interesting lecture and demonstration lesson on rubber to pupils in Lower IV A and to on the afternoon of Monday, 6th November. He told the boys of the skill and labour needed in preparing the ground for planting rubber trees, and showed, by using a log of ordinary wood, how the " tapping " of rubber trees is carried out. Great care, he said, had to be exercised in cutting through the bark, in case the cambium layer should be pierced. Mr. Bisset kept the pupils thoroughly interested for more than an hour Towards the close he invited questions, a and a half. large number of which were eagerly put.

The School Library. A Gift of over 200 Volumes. The Reference Department of the School Library has during the last few years received valuable additions both from the Education Authority and from private donors. Quite recently a handsome gift-a gift of over two hundred volumes—came through the generosity of Miss Neil and Mrs. James Neil. The books are from the libraries of our distinguished F.P., the late Dr. Robert A. Neil, Fellow, Tutor, and Lecturer of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and his brother, the late Dr. James Neil, Medical Superintendent of Warneford Mental Hospital, Oxford. It is not merely the large number of volumes that makes this a splendid addition, but also the judicious and skilful selection of books. They deal with Scotland as a whole— its history, literature, and so on—with the Highlands, and with Aberdeen. There are, for example, thirty-six volumes Series ; two, at least, being by F.P.s— of the Famous Scots s Professor A. F. Munson i and Mr. W. Keith Leask. Other books are : Tytler's " History of Scotland " ; Burton's " Scot Abroad " ; Mackintosh's " History of Civilization in Scotland " ; Henderson's " Casket Letters," and works by other writers on Mary Stuart ; volumes of Blackwood's County Histories, of the Spalding Club, of the Scottish Text Society—including Dr. James Moir's " Wallace " ; Chambers's

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" Domestic Annals " ; Henderson's " Scottish Vernacular Literature " ; Angellier's " Robert Burns " ; MacBain's " Gaelic Dictionary," and " Scoto-Celtic Studies " ; Blackie's " Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands," and " Scottish Song" ; Campbell's " Highland Dress, Arms, Ornament " ; Beattie's " Minstrel " ; Bulloch's " History of the University of Aberdeen " ; " Black Kalendar of Aberdeen " ; Marshal Keith's " Memoirs " ; Wishart's " Montrose " (Dr. H. F. Morland Simpson's edition). Time would fail me to enumerate more, but four of special interest I must not omit. One is manuscript translations of Anacreon's " Odes " from the Auchinleck Library, with Sir Alexander Boswell's signature. Another is " Ajax his speech to the Grecian Knabbs," and other works by R. Forbes, in the rich old Buchan tongue. The third is " The North Briton," with the notorious " No. 45." The last is Macgregor's " Scald," the poem which fifty years ago caused a furore when declaimed to the Aberdeen University Literary Society. It is to be hoped that this noble gift will inspire many other F.P.s to obey the injunction of St. Luke x, 37. The suggestion has been made, and it is likely to be acted upon, that a suitable bookcase should be made in the School Workshop from a design by Mr. Winkley and under his supervision. W. MURISON.

The Athletic Sports. The Annual Athletic Sports were held at Rubislaw Field on Friday and Saturday, 23rd and 24th June. Although no records were broken, the average of athletic ability was higher than it had been in any previous year. The following is a list of the prize-winners in the open events :— High Jump-1 M. G. Gibb, 5 feet ; 2 J. Bain, 3 D. Cochran. 100 Yards1 J. Middleton, 11 secs. ; 2 M. Gibb, 3 F. Waring. 220 Yards-1 J. Middleton, 2 M. Gibb, 3 F. Waring. Quarter-mile-1 F. Waring, 58 2-5 secs. ; 2 D. Cruickshank, 3 R. Walker. Half-mile-1 C. A. G. Savidge, 2 mins. 17 1-5 secs. ; 2 J. B. Esslemont, 3 H. Rutherford. One mile-1 D. Mursell, 5 mins. 20 secs. ; 2 J. Esslemont, 3 C. Savidge. Hurdle Race-1 M. Gibb, 2 D. S. Cochran, 3 J. Middleton. Throwing the Hammer-1 S. Humphrey, 70 feet ; 2 J. Middleton, 3 S. Anderson. Putting the Shot-1 S. Humphrey, 27 feet 6 in. ; 2 J. Middleton, 3 K. Matthew. Throwing Cricket Ball-1 K. Finlayson, 91 yards ; 2 A. Margach, 3 J. Middleton. Drop Kick-1 A. Grafton, 148 feet 10 in. ; 2 K. Matthew, 3 D. Cochran. Place Kick-1 G. Pink, 163 feet 6 in. ; . 2 A. Grafton, 3 S. Humphrey.

School Cricket Notes. The Cricket Season of 1922 has been a very successful one for the School. Sixteen matches were played, of which 10 were won, 5 lost, and 1 drawn. Two away matches were played, against Kingseat Asylum and 2nd XI Huntly. We

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were unfortunate in losing the latter match by the narrow margin of two runs. The success of the Club was mainly due to the fine bowling of G. M. Pixie and the consistent batting of A. W. Grafton. The School scored 1,010 runs for the loss of 121 wickets, giving an average of 8.34 runs per wicket. Our opponents scored 1,148 runs for 153 wickets, an average of 7.5 runs per wicket. The following are the batting and bowling averages of the team :— BATTING AVERAGES. No. of Times Total Highest Innings Not Out Runs Score A. W. Grafton 14 1 218 42 G. M. Pixie 15 3 165 39* J. Davidson 14 3 108 21* A. J. Margach 14 1 111 24 W. G. Macmillan 6 2 24 6* C. A. G. Savidge 15 0 75 34 J. W. L. Bain 6 2 18 9► W. R. Hepburn 9 1 34 10* C. Anderson 14 0 50 13 E. H. Manthei 12 1 36 15 K. Finlayson 6 1 12 5 J. E. Smith 4 0 8 7 The following played less than four innings. Richardson 1 1 17 17* A. D. Mackintosh 3 1 18 28 * Signifies not out.

G. M. Pixie A. J. Margach C. A. G. Savidge

BOWLING AVERAGES. Maidens Runs Wickets 21 395 76 9 513 59 4 101 10

Ovens 170 150 36

Average 16.8 13.75 9.81 8.54 6.00 5.00 4.5 4.25 3.57 3.27 2.4 2.00 — 14

Average 5.2 8.7 10.1

School Rugby. The prospects of the 1st XV, with only five old " colours " back, did not appear very rosy at the beginning of the season. The team, however, has improved so greatly that it has become a really good School side. It has only lost one match since the opening of the season. The starting of " Houses" in the School has greatly increased keenness for the game, and already a marked improvement can be seen in the standard of play. 16th September.—School played 1st F.P.s in a trial game. Owing to the wet weather the play. was mostly confined to the forwards. The School forwards played well against a much heavier pack, while the three-quarters were kept on the defensive most of the time. 23rd September.—School played 1st Gordonians. The forwards played well in the loose but were unable to control the ball in the scrum. In the second half a combined movement between Esslemont, Matthew, and Savidge ended in Matthew scoring. Best for the School were Weir, Begg, and Savidge. Result ; 1st Gordonians, 14 points ; School, 3 points. 30th September.--School played 2nd 'Shire. The forwards heeled well but there was a great lack of backing up and passing. The " threes " and halves were very faulty in their handling of the ball. The whole team must learn to work together. Tries were scored by Cruickshank, Esslemont 2, Matthew, Wood, Scrimgeour. The best for the School were Savidge,

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Scrimgeour, Weir, Wood, and Brown. Final result : School, 22 points ; 2nd 'Shire, nil. 7th October.—School v. Gordon's College. The whole School played a very fine game. The forwards, for the first time, grasped the meaning of passing among themselves and helping their backs. The most outstanding feature of the match was the way in which the School backed each other up. Another feature of the game was the " dummy." This was tried by the whole team. The backs will have to learn not to overdo it. The forwards heeled well but must get down quicker, and in the proper place. Scrimgeour had two very good tries, both solo efforts. Savidge played a good game and had some fine " cuts-in," but was inclined to " dummy " too often. Mackintosh, at full back, played well, but must not run too far with the ball, but clear at once. The most outstanding forwards were Wishart, Weir, and Davidson. Weir was a little selfish and must learn to pass at the right time. Scorers for School—Scrimgeour 3, Wishart 2, Anderson, N. Esslemont 2, B. Esslemont 2, Cochran 2, and Savidge 2. Result : School, 51 points ; Gordon's College, nil. 14th October.—School v. 2nd XV F.P.s. The School played against a much heavier team. The forwards played a very good game and had some fine rushes. The " scrumming " was good, but the pack must learn to wheel. School backs played a fair game. Scrimgeour and Savidge both played well. Savidge " cut in" sometimes, however, and was unable to pass out. Cruickshank, playing as a substitute, "dropped" a very fine goal in the second half. Best for the School were Weir, Savidge, Davidson, Brown. Tries were scored by Matthew and Cruickshank 2, Result : School, 15 points ; 2nd F.P.s., 9 points. 28th October.—School played their first League game against 2nd Gordonians. In the first half the play was very scrappy. The .School did not seem able to combine, and the passing was very poor. The first scoring came when Anderson touched down for the School, and shortly afterwards Esslemont got over again. Both tries were converted. In the second half School improved and Cruickshank scored after a fine run. School continued to press and two more tries were secured. Near the end Cochran cut in well and scored between the posts. Best for School were Begg, Davidson, and M'Intosh. Score : School, 26 points ; 2nd Gordonians, nil.

Scout Notes. If bad weather could spoil a Scout camp, the summer camps of both the School Troops would this year have been utterly ruined. With the exception of snow, which fell persistently at the Easter camps, almost every species of meteorological discouragement was provided ; but the worse the weather, the cheerier the boys became, and the one thing impervious to damp was their spirits. To give even the weather its due, however, it had its bright moments, during which the maximum of training, excursions, and bathing was accomplished The 1st Troop climbed hills—Mount Battock, Kerloch, and others too numerous to mention, while the P.L.s, in the course of a two days' " hike," wandered to the top of Mount Keen, descended into Forfarshire, slept out in the open, and returned to Glen Dye, where the Troop was this year encamped, with a mileage that a Spartan army might have envied. The 9th Troop, who were in camp at Finzean, also climbed hills, and fished in the Feugh and the Avon, catching some trout that have already assumed imposing proportions in the traditions of the Troop. Despite the chilliness of the water, both Troops bathed frequently. The 1st Troop built a boat for themselves, the ill-fated Casabianca, which disappeared in one of the spates that afflicted the Dye during the fortnight of camp, and was never heard of again. During its short existence, however, it was the source of much pleasure, for it leaked to such an extent that its occupants could simultaneously enjoy the pastimes of boating and bathing. At the summer camps the 1st Troop mustered three Officers and fortyfive Scouts; the 9th, three Officers, forty-four Scouts, and six Cubs. (This year the 1st Pack held a separate camp at the Hut under P.L.s Walker and Wright.) On Visitors' Day both Troops had a most gratifying attendance of parents, in each case between forty and fifty. Despite the weather, neither Troop had a single " casualty," a testimony, not merely to the organization of the camps, but also to the hardiness of the boys. A short time after the summer camp, the 1st Troop lost one of its best friends, Mr. Gordon Grant, B.Sc., who held the rank of instructor in the

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Troop. His interest in, and knowledge of, nature study has been of great value to the boys, in whom he inspired a taste for such studies that has outlasted the mere acquisition of the Scout Badges which were the primary aim of his teaching. The best wishes of all follow him to Canada, where he has gone on forestry work. The September holiday camps were not without a flavour of the unusual. The 1st Troop Leaders cycled to Lochnagar, which they climbed on the Sunday, having to turn back a short way from the summit owing to a heavy mist. The Hounds Patrol (1st Troop) held a patrol camp at the Burn o' the Vat. The 9th Troop had arranged the customary camp at Pitflchie, but had their plans upset at the last moment by a breakdown in the transport, whereat they adjourned to the Hut for the week-end. Thus ended the camping season for both Troops, a full one in spite of the weather. The 1st, who are of a statistical turn of mind, have reckoned up their total for the year, and find it to be twenty-eight camps and cycle tours. The winter work has now commenced again, much on the usual lines, the one novelty being a boot-repairing class which the 1st Troop has started, and which is inviting—and receiving—orders from parents and friends. The 9th Troop has been holding a series of outings under A.S.M. Hutchison, the aim of which has been nature study. At the Scouts' Swimming Gala in June, the 1st Troop carried off the Cup presented by the Ladies' Scout Council to the Troop obtaining the largest total of points, and at the Athletic Sports in September came within half a point of winning the Norrie Shield as well, a very creditable record for the season. The annual meeting of the Grammar School Area was held on 26th October, 1922, the Rector presiding over a small attendance of parents. Though the business is, in the main, purely formal, such meetings provide an opportunity for parents and friends to raise any question of interest and importance to Scouting in the School, and to learn from the Scoutmasters' reports exactly what the Troops have accomplished during the past year. The Rector and the other officials of the Area desire to make it clear to all interested in the School Troops that their presence at the annual meetings of the Area would be both welcome and helpful. It will be a matter of regret to all that the District Scoutmaster, Mr. C. W. Walker, has been compelled by pressure of work to resign. Mr. A. F. Hyslop, a member of the School Staff, has been recommended as his successor. Vacancies on the Executive were filled by the appointment of Messrs. Porter and Walker (lay members), and A.S.M.s Grafton, G. F. Walker, and Yule (Scout members). Though, fortunately, Mr. C. W. Walker has not completely severed his connection with Scouting in the School, he cannot he allowed to pass from his District Scoutmastership without a word of acknowledgment of the very numerous services he has rendered during the past few years. Of uncommon versatility, he has instructed in Signalling, stage-managed plays, " made up " the players, and done a hundred and one other things for the sheer pleasure of helping the Movement. But perhaps his greatest usefulness has been the quiet wisdom with which he has adjusted the place of the School Troops in the larger aspects of the Movement in the city, and the tact which he has so unfailingly employed. Before the actual Area meeting, an illustrated lecture entitled " Snapshots from the School Troops' Albums ' was delivered by Mr. A. F. Hyslop in the School Hall. Almost eighty slides were used to give sow, idea of the life of the Troops at their Headquarters and at camp. There was a large audience. During the summer a few promotions have been made in the Troops. In the 1st Troop J. M. Stuart and J. W. S. Cobban ; in the 9th, Lyle McDougall and G. Anderson have been promoted Patrol Leaders. Besides the ordinary work of the winter, the 9th Troop are at present preparing for another entertainment, this time a Continuous Concert, which is to take place on 9th December. As usual, the Concert will conclude with a play acted by members of the Troop. There will also be a " Camp Fire," Tableaux, etc. Many friends have already promised their help, among whom may be mentioned Mr. J. Mackenzie Forbes, Mr. Max. Wright, and the Scout Orchestra under A.S.M. Shewan. Tea will be provided, and the customary expedients for making money will be well in evidence. Though the 1 1 th Troop is in no way connected with the Grammar School Area,' many of its members are Grammar boys. So the School Troops desire to take this opportunity of congratulating the 1 1 th Troop on the acquisition of an excellent Headquarters Hut, and of wishing it every success and happiness in its new home.

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The Former Pupils' Club. FOUNDED 1893.

Vresibent : JOHN FARQUHAR CHRISTIE, M.A., M.B.

ViceoPresibent atib (Milkman of Executive: WILLIAM GORDON CRAIGEN, M.A., LL.B. Secretarv anD Creasurer : THEODORE WArr, M.A., The Rosemount Press, Aberdeen.

Secretaries of Sections: London Section—T. .1. WILSON, C.A., 59/60 Old Bailey, E.C. 4. [This Section comprises, without additional subscription, all Members of the Club resident in London, and within a radius of 50 miles.]

Rugby Football Section—DONALD S. STEWART, View House, View Terrace, Aberdeen. Hockey Section—NORMAN S. ROSE, 16 Rubislaw Terrace, Aberdeen. Tennis Section—GEORGE T. SIMPSON, 6 King's Gate, Aberdeen. Motor Section—DOUGLAS P. COCHRAN, 61 Westburn Road, Aberdeen. Rates of Subscription for Membership: Life Membership . . £5 5 0 Ordinary Membership-For those under 21 years of age at commencement of Club year (16th April) . . 0 2 6 For those of 21 years of age and upwards . 0 5 0 Club Colours. •

•

The Club Colours are Magenta and Dark Green, which may be had in the form of ties, scarves, etc.

Visitors' Register. Members visiting Aberdeen are requested to enter their names and addresses in the Visitors' Register, which is kept at the office of the Aberdeen Free Press, 28 UNION STREET.

F.P. Athletic Association. The objects of the Association are to assist and co-ordinate the working of the various Athletic Sections of the Club, and to extend the athletic activities of the Club. The annual subscription is three shillings, except in the case of members of any of the affiliated Sections. Their annual subscription is one shilling and sixpence.

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The Annual Dinner. The Annual Dinner of the Club was held in the Palace Hotel, Aberdeen, as usual, on Saturday, 21st October, when Patrol Leader James W. S. Marr, fresh from the " Quest," and Mr. George A. Morrison, head master, Robert Gordon's Secondary School, were the chief guests. Dr. John F. Christie, the President of the Club for 1922-23, occupied the Chair, presiding over a company which numbered almost exactly 100. Thanks largely to him, a very genial atmosphere was created, and a thoroughly enjoyable evening was spent. The Company. Accompanying the Chairman at the principal table were Patrol Leader Marr and Mr. Morrison. At the Chairman's table there were also :—Mr. William G. Craigen, advocate, Vice-President of the Club ; Mr. Douglas G. Miller, Rector of the School ; Sheriff-Substitute Dallas, Professor Ashley W. Mackintosh, Mr. George Duncan, Chairman, Aberdeen Education Authority ; Professor Alexander Gray, and Mr. Theodore Watt, Hon. Secretary and Treasurer of the Club. Others present were :—Members of the School Staff (who are Honorary Members of the Club)—Messrs. James Davidson, J. Mackenzie Forbes, and A. F. Hyslop. Members of the Club :—Messrs. George J. Allan, Robert J. Anderson, jun. ; A. Eric Bruce, Henry J. Butchart, D.S.O., Secretary of the University ; Rev. Reginald E. Butchart, Messrs. A. J. Chambers-Hunter, John H. N. Craigen, Provost Alexander W. Christie, Huntly ; Messrs. Douglas P. Cochran, John Crombie, A. T. Cruickshank, O.B.E., advocate ; Donald A. Davidson, James C. Duffus, advocate ; Henry G. Edwards, Henry J. Edwards, Herbert J. Edwards, Ranald Esslemont, Douglas Falconer, Harvey G. Falconer, James Fiddes, jun. ; Godfrey P. Geddes, D.S.O. ; James Hay, advocate ; Arthur R. Horne, Stephen J. Hunter, A. M`K. Johnston. Francis C. Kelly, C. G. Kennaway, Norman H. Lyall, James Leith, jun. ; Alan M`Bain, Ian M'Bain., C.A. ; Reginald C. Mackie, W. A. M`Robbie, Neil G. Marr, Lieutenant Cornelius Mearns, Indian Army ; Messrs. James W. Milne, C.A., Liverpool ; James W. Monro, Alexander Murray, George G. Nicol, D.S.O. ; Robert Gordon Nicol, Harbour Engineer ; James Patterson, advocate ; Rev. Professor George Pittendrigh, D.D. ; Messrs. John Minto Robertson, Turriff ; James F. Robson, Dr. Thomas O. Robson, Messrs. Douglas G. Sangster, Alexander Sharp, advocate; Lindsay L. Shepherd, Simpson Shepherd, W. Douglas Simpson, Lecturer in British History, Aberdeen University ; George T. Simpson, Dr. Thomas S. Slessor, Mr. A. G. Nicol Smith, D.S.O. ; Dr. H. Edgar Smith, Dr. H. Ross Souper, Dr. W. Clark Souter, Messrs. John C. Taylor,

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Hankow ; Norman J. J. Walker, advocate ; Alexander M. Watt, Charles Watt, Edward W. Watt, James J. Williamson, William B. Williamson, H. N. B. Wilson. Guests of Members :—Messrs. P. J. Anderson, Librarian, Aberdeen University ; William Anderson, O.B.E., Albyn Terrace ; Hugh R. Barr, G. Herbert Colt, F.R.C.S. ; Alfred Dingwall, David S. P. Douglas, J. H. Eddison, Dr. Thomas Fraser, Messrs. Gibbon, R. Leslie J. Henderson, Professor James Hendrick, Messrs. H. G. Chambers-Hunter, James Johnstone, advocate ; George MacPhee, L.D.S. ; George Murray, Fuuntainhall Road ; William Sangster, Rubislaw Den South ; James Scott, Forest Road ; Frederick K. Smith, Queen's Cross ; Harry S. Tawse, Professor George Thomson, and Mr. Robert Weir, Lecturer in Roman History, Aberdeen University. New Lord Justice Clerk Congratulated. The Chairman gave the toast of " The King," and the Honorary Secretary intimated apologies for absence from Lord Meston, who had been unexpectedly detained in London on special Treasury business ; Lord Provost Meff, Mr. C. J. Davidson, advocate ; Lieut-Col. Thomas Ogilvie, C.B., C.M.G., a past President of the Club ; Mr. Walter A. Reid, Rev. Dr. James Shepherd, and Mr. F. C. Thomson, M.P. The Secretary also mentioned that, acting on the instructions of the President, he had sent the following telegram to Lord Alness :— " Right Hon. Robert Munro, Lord Alness, Edinburgh.— Fellow-members of the Grammar School Former Pupils' Club assembled at Annual Dinner send congratulations to new Lord Justice Clerk." (Applause.) He had received the following reply :— " Pray tell my fellow-members of the Club that I am most grateful to them for their thoughtful and kindly message.—ROBERT MUNRO." (Applause.) " The School." Dr. H. Ross Souper, in proposing " The School," said he thought we could all say with him that we had a happy time at the " Grammar," and that we looked back upon it with a sense of great affection. (Applause.) It was difficult to know what really made for our pride in, and affection for, it. One of the things might be its great age. That certainly enabled him, during the War, to take down a young subaltern who spoke disparagingly of Scottish as compared with English schools, and boasted that " his " school dated from the 15th century. The " Grammar's " 1256 shut him up. (Laughter and applause.) Then there was the spirit of endeavour and happiness which, in his time, Dr. Simpson appeared to inspire. By endeavour he did not mean the spirit of " swotting "—a •

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school was not to be judged by exams., but by what its pupils did in after life, and there the School could hold its own with any school—(applause)—but the spirit of endeavour in everything pertaining to the normal life of the normal boy. (Applause.) We hoped the School would go on and prosper under the present Rector as it had prospered in the past. (Applause.) The Rector's Reply. Mr. Miller, who was enthusiastically received, said the knowledge that each of us had a fervent and abiding affection for the old School was to those at the School a constant source of encouragement and of stimulus to further endeavour. (Applause.) The School, with little short of 900 boys, had reached the stage when they could not add a class without getting more accommodation. There were three " floating " classes this year which took classrooms vacated by classes that had gone to classrooms reserved for special subjects—such as science and gymnastics ; and twice it seemed as though one of these classes would have to be put into the playground. He broached that subject there when he imagined most people would be in a fairly good frame of mind—(laughter)-and because he thought extra accommodation was to be wanted very soon. (Applause.) VALUABLE GIFTS OF BOOKS.

A valuable gift had just been presented to the School of books belonging to Mr. Robert A. Neil, who was at the School in the 'sixties, and was afterwards a Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Many of Mr. Neil's books had been sent to the rebuilt Louvain Library, and the remainder consisted to a great extent of a collection of books on Scottish subjects, and it had occurred to the lady whose brother had been left the books that a suitable place for them would be the Library of Mr. Neil's old School. (Applause.) Mr. Murison, who was an expert in these matters, undertook to look over the books when they came, and found that they were really a valuable collection, and one of which they ought to be proud. (Applause.) The books would be kept separate as the Robert A. Neil Collection. TESTIMONY FROM NEW ZEALAND.

Perhaps we should like to hear of a testimony to the School. The head master of Auckland Grammar School, New Zealand, wrote him that he was in dire difficulty over innovations in New Zealand education, and asked advice, telling frankly that he had no reason for writing him other than this, that in New Zealand the school which was heard most about and whose pupils made their way to positions

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of eminence in every department was the Aberdeen Grammar School, and he felt he could write to no better school in Great Britain for advice. (Applause.) THE SCHOOL'S FOUR " HOUSES." There was no fear of the School's class work deteriorating, but there was a side of school life which seemed to him just as important. They had a very strong social life, and in that connexion he gratefully paid tribute to the memory of Dr. Morland Simpson. But the School was growing, and the better to make every boy feel he was really taking part in the School's corporate activities, they had divided it into four Houses- Byron House, Dun House (after Patrick Dun, the School's greatest benefactor), Keith House (after FieldMarshal Keith), and Melvin House. (Applause.) Each House had a senior House Master, two Assistant House Masters, and a House Captain. There would be inter-House competitions in games—with junior, middle, and senior fifteens and cricket elevens in each House—and in work. It was thereby hoped to establish among as many boys as possible a sense of belonging to a unity, in which the big boys took an interest in the smaller boys, and in which the Masters took an intimate interet in all the boys of the House. (Applause.) Dr. Christie, our President, had offered for annual competition a trophy on which the name of the House Captain of the winning House of the year would be inscribed. (Applause.) TRIBUTE TO EDUCATION AUTHORITY. As the only person who could really judge and feel the situation, he thought we should, as a Club, express our indebtedness to the Education Authority of Aberdeen. (Applause.) We might have seen lurid letters about the effect of schools taken over by public authorities in England. He felt grateful that in Aberdeen the Authority, while retaining control of the School, left them to be captains of their own soul, to work in their Grammar School ways and traditions, and were proud of it. (Applause.) He believed the School would add to the lustre and glory of its great past. (Applause.) The Chairman gave " The Rector," which toast was honoured with enthusiasm, and Mr. Miller, responding, said he was very happy in the Grammar School, and hoped to be happy there for many years. (Loud applause.) " Our Guests." Douglas Simpson, introduced by the Chairman Mr. W. as " the worthy son of a worthy sire," proposed " Our Guests." He said they welcomed Mr. Morrison, head master of the " other place "—(laughter and applause)—most heartily, and were sure that under his wise and able and efficient manage-

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ment Gordon's College would continue to provide in class and playfield foemen worthy of the Grammar boys to exercise their steel upon. (Applause and laughter.) The honour done to Patrol Leader Marr, and through him to the School, in being selected out of 20,000 Boy Scouts to go to the Antarctic, was an altogether unique one. (Applause.) There was nothing like it in the history of the School. He never had the slightest doubt that, if chosen, Marr would prove thoroughly worthy of the Scouts, of the School, and of his own people, and the story of his work in the " Quest " and the high praise he had received from the official heads of the expedition amply proved that. (Applause.) Mr. G. A. Morrison's Reply. Mr. G. A. Morrison, in acknowledging, said he appreciated that act of courtesy and fraternal feeling, and offered on behalf of himself and the Association he represented their best wishes for the success of our great School and our Club. (Applause.) He was sure we would rather hear Patrol Leader Marr, who had weathered many storms, while he could not claim to have weathered anything more stormy than a meeting of the governors of the Technical College. (Laughter and applause.) As a head master, he could say such loyalty as ours was a great asset to any school. He thought the feeling of former pupils was best expressed by the Latin word pietas, which was difficult to translate, combining loyalty, affection, dutiful service, and that something which one might almost call worship. (Applause.) Let us keep it alive in our hearts ; it was good for us—it was those things which kept men's souls fresh and young—and, as Mr. Miller had said, it was of inestimable value to the head of a school. (Applause.) In response to insistent cries of " Man," Patrol Leader Man rose amid a round of applause, and said he felt the honour done him as a guest very much, and he heartily thanked us. (Applause.) " The Club." Mr. A. T. Cruickshank, giving " The Club," outlined its work and activities, paying warm tribute to the memory of the late Mr. James Esslemont, to whom the Club owed more than to any other man, living or dead, for its greatest work, the provision of a playfield, and to that of Dr. Morland Simpson, whose work we were proud to acknowledge in the presence of his son. (Applause.) What we had to do now was to complete the project for a pavilion at Rubislaw Field in memory of the men who fell in the War. The Chairman's Reply. The Chairman, replying, said the Club was flourishing. Looking at our list of Honorary Vice-Presidents, he questioned

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

if anywhere there could be found a more distinguished list of men, famous in business, politics, the Navy, the Army, the Church, law, and medicine. Later he hoped we should have a famous Antarctic explorer. (Applause and laughter.) The London Section was now beyond the toddling stage. He wondered whether the Club could not get up a Bowling Section for members of 40 plus. The Magazine was the greatest thing we had. What was it that bound us to the School ? He thought it was something beyond the time we were at it, its education, or the friendships we made—a something that lay deep in the secret parts of our hearts, a feeling that we should not dare to do anything that would disgrace the old School to which we still belonged. (Applause.) We learned to play the game, we learned the old School cry, and knew what it meant ; we still heard and recognized it, and he would utter it again, " Go it, Grammar." (Laughter and applause.) £200 for the Pavilion. Provost A. W. Christie, Huntly, said he thought we ought to do something to enable the erection of the pavilion to proceed. On being informed that it was estimated that a very considerable sum was still required, the Provost, amid applause, said he would subscribe £50 towards it. Mr. James W. Milne, C.A., Liverpool, ex-Honorary Secretary of the Club, announced that he would give a similar subscription. (Applause.) Other members present followed with subscriptions, and before the close, thanks largely to the efforts of Provost Christie, the sum of about £200 had been promised.* Mr. W. G. Craigen proposed " The Chairman," and the toast of " Bon-Accord" concluded the proceedings. A small orchestra gave instrumental selections while dinner was being served, and later an enjoyable programme of music, etc., was carried out by Mr. J. Mackenzie Forbes, who sang the School Song, " Bon-Record," to a new and tuneful setting composed by himself ; Messrs. F. K. Smith, J. H. N. Craigen, W. G. Craigen, A. F. Hyslop, and J. W. Monro, who gave his inimitable impersonation of the late Mr. Charles Sleigh. • It may be well to mention that the subscribing of this very welcome sum arose quite spontaneously out of the proceedings : it was in no way instigated by the Executive of the Club or others interested in the completion of the War Memorial scheme.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

Club Notes. To all who have left the School. The Executive of the Former Pupils' Club invite every boy who has left the School to become a member of the Club, if he has not already done so. The objects of the Club are :—" To promote educational and social intercourse among the Former Pupils, to keep them in touch with the School, and to assist Former Pupils and the School in whatever way may seem advisable to the Executive." The Club has various Sections devoted to athletics and to other interests, and membership of the Club is necessary for admission to any Section, or to any Club gathering. A copy of the Magazine, which is issued three times a year, is sent, free of charge, to every member, whether resident at home or abroad. Members' Subscriptions. All Ordinary Members of the Club who have not yet paid their subscription for the year which commenced on 16th April last, are made aware of this, and of the amount now due, by a slip attached to the front cover of the present issue of the Magazine. The complaint is sometimes heard, " I seem to be for ever getting reminders about my subscription." It should, however, be clearly understood that it is always with the November issue that the first reminder about payment of the subscription for the current year is sent, and if all members so reminded would respond at once, there would, of course, be no subsequent reminders for that particular year. It is the Treasurer's practice to send a collector round during the summer months for the subscriptions of the majority of Aberdeen members, and it would greatly facilitate his work and reduce expense if Ordinary Members, both at home and abroad, whose subscriptions are outstanding, would always send them as soon as they receive the November issue of the Magazine. If this is not done, there is, in the case of members resident abroad, very little time left for the Treasurer to communicate again with any whose subscriptions are in arrear. and receive a reply before the end of the Club year, on 15th April. Monthly Luncheons. The Executive of the Club has decided that the informal Monthly Luncheons, which were started in the autumn of last year, are to continue to be held on the first Wednesday of every month, and the hour of meeting has recently been changed to 1.15 p.m. instead' of 1 p.m. It is hoped that members home from abroad, or usually resident out of Aberdeen, will endeavour, if at all possible, when they are visiting Aberdeen, to attend one or more of the Monthly Luncheons.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

The Executive would like the Luncheons to be the means of keeping members informed as to what is going on at the School, and have been promised by the Rector that he will be present frequently, and speak from time to time on School matters. To induce a larger attendance, the Executive have arranged with the management of the Palace Hotel (in a reserved Dining Room of which the monthly meeting is held) for a special three-course luncheon to be served, the reduced charge for which is 3/— per head, inclusive of a small contribution towards the general expenses of the Luncheons. The next Luncheon will take place on Wednesday, 6th December, when it is hoped that the Rector will be present and speak. On the grounds of expense it is impossible to send notices of each Luncheon to individual members, but an advertisement on the evening before and on the morning of each Luncheon appears in the local newspapers. The Annual Ball. The Ball is to be held on Tuesday, 26th December, and is to be run on the lines which proved so successful last year. The Large Hall and the Ball Room of the Music Hall Buildings have again been booked. The prices of tickets will be at the same low figures as last year, viz. :—double ticket, £1. ls. ; extra lady, 12s. 6d. ; single gentleman, 12s. 6d.—wines extra. A special circular about the Ball has already been issued to the majority of members of the Club resident in Aberdeen. Any member, wherever resident, who would like to be present at the Ball will receive full particulars on application to the Secretary of the Club. It is hoped that the reversion to the former date-26th December—will enable members visiting Aberdeen for Christmas to attend, and that all will co-operate to make this year's Ball even more successful than its predecessors. The London Section. This Section continues to flourish and grow. The first informal Dinner for the season 1922-23 was held on Thursday, 26th October, when there was a very satisfactory attendance of between 40 and 50. Other informal Dinners are to be held on Tuesday, 12th December ; Wednesday, 31st January ; and either the first or second Thursday in March. Arrangements have been made for holding these Dinners in the Dickens Room at Can's Restaurant, 264 The Strand (between the Law Courts and Aldwych). This room is an excellent one, and the catering and service show a marked. improvement over last season's at another restaurant. At the Dinner on 26th October, Mr. Walter A. Reid, the Chairman of the Byron Statue Committee, was present, and outlined the present position of the Statue movement. Mr. Theodore

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

Watt, the Secretary of the Club, was also present, and spoke about the Statue and various other matters of interest. Dr. J. M. Bulloch was in the Chair and was successful in creating a very friendly atmosphere and making the evening a notable success. Mr. H. H. Joseph, the former Gymnastic Instructor at the School, who is an Honorary Member of the Club, was responsible for a short programme of music. On Tuesday, 12th December, Mr. Howard A. Gray, M.A., of the Pall Mall Gazette and The Observer, will speak on "The Other Carlyle," and some music will follow. It is hoped that the attendance at these very pleasant informal Dinners will continue to grow, and that Former Pupils resident in and round London will more and more realize the opportunities that are now being provided for their meeting with one another.

Club Consuls. By almost every mail, the Secretary of the F.P. Club is receiving letters commending the Club Consuls scheme and expressing either satisfaction that a Consul has been appointed for the writer's particular district, or the hope that one will soon be appointed. It is impossible, or at any rate inadvisable, to rush the appointment of these representatives of the Club, but if the list given below is compared with the list in last Magazine, it will be seen that quite a number of additional appointments have been made; and as the Secretary is in communication with a good many members in various parts of the world who are likely to accept the consular office, the list will doubtless be considerably extended in the next Magazine. In Toronto, Consul " Bob" Fleming is settling down to his duties in earnest. He reports that already he has received several interesting letters. One F.P. in Assam has written to him inquiring about conditions in the engineering profession in Canada. Another, in Nova Scotia, wishes to know how engineering conditions in Ontario compared with those where he is living. One day our Consul found the following note on his desk :-" A.G.S. Consul. Called to ' salute' you, but found you busy. Am en route for Alberta for the summer. Will look you up in the Fall. Nothing important—just the old School.—Wallace Troup." Various other F.P.s have called on him from time to time, and he says that the " List of Members Resident Abroad " published in the last Magazine has already proved of great service in letting members know where other members are living. He emphasizes that boys who have recently left the School and who intend going abroad should be shown

.4 berdeen Grammar School Magazine.

the advantage of becoming members of the Club, and he predicts that before long, thanks to the Consuls Scheme, the membership of the Club will be greatly increased. An F.P. resident in the Midlands of England has been very favourably impressed with the " Consul innovation," but writes to suggest that the scheme should go further. " Why limit it to abroad ? My opinion is that it could be adopted at home with equally happy and beneficial results. As you know, when in Aberdeen I was quite a keen F.P., but after you are away for a dozen years, as I have been, you lose touch to quite a considerable extent—it is inevitable. You see the " Mag." and read about certain of your old friends, and there it ends. In Aberdeen it is different. You have all your functions, you can take an interest in the F.P.s, and in a hundred and one ways delude yourself you are not getting old. You should have a Consul in every important town in this country. I am quite sure there are any amount of F.P.s in the industrial country round here, yet we never meet. You come here perhaps, as I did, a stranger, and if your temperament is Aberdonian, you remain a stranger for a very long time, and yet I am sure in every large centre you have men who would be glad to help any new-comer, and there is no reason why there shouldn't be local clubs affiliated to the Aberdeen parent club just as in London. There is plenty affection for the old School to make a live section in every large city in the country. I am sure you could arrange for cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, and so on. The thing can and should be done." The Secretary is doubtful whether there are really " any amount " of F.P.s in and around the cities mentioned—there are, at anyrate, as a rule, only two or three members of the Club. The suggestion, however, will be carefully considered, and certainly the outstanding success of the London Section is a great encouragement to have similar sections started in other centres. Full List of Consuls already appointed. Borneo :—Rt. Rev. E. D. LOGIE DANSON (1892-94), D.D., Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak, Bishop's House, Kucking, Sarawak, via Singapore. Canada (Nova Scotia) :—GEORGE MACKENZIE WOOD (1880- 82), c/o Messrs. Joseph Wood & Co., Central Wharf, Halifax. Canada (New Brunswick) :—WILLIAM MENZIES KESSON (1893-98), North Devon. Canada (Ontario) :---ROBERT FLEMING (1891-98), C.E., c/o Messrs. Wood, Fleming & Co., Royal Bank Buildings, Toronto.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

Canada (Alberta) :-JOHN CHARLES. MURRAY LIGERTWOOD

(1903-06), C.A., c/o Messrs. Marwick, Mitchell & Co., 27 Canada Life Building, Calgary. [Formerly Consul in Winnipeg.] Ceylon I—DAVID Scorr (1886-94), go Messrs. Lewis Brown and Co., Colombo. Gold Coast Colony :—WILLIAM MILLER, Assistant Colonial Secretary for Harbours and Railways, The Secretariat, Accra. Hongkong : JOHN CAMERON TAYLOR (1904-06), c/o Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., Hongkong. [At present at home : returns to Hongkong in June, 1923.] India

(Punjab) :—WILLIAM

NORMAN

LESLIE

(1892-95),

Southern Punjab Railway Co., Ltd., Ferozepore. India (Bengal) :—G. F. ROSE (1881-92), c/o Messrs. Andrew Yule & Co., Ltd., 8 Clive Row, Calcutta. Japan :—WILLIAM NICOLL BUYERS (1906-10), c/o The Zangtsze Insurance Association, Ltd., 750 Main Street, Yokohama. New Zealand :--Dr. THEODORE GRANT GRAY (1895-1901), Wellington. Nigeria (Southern Provinces) :-Dr. WILLIAM EDWARD GLOVER (1896-98),c/o The Principal Medical Officer, Lagos. South Africa (Cape Province) :—Dr. ALEXANDER MARK GEDDES (1897-1903), Grove Avenue, Claremont, Cape Town. Sudan JAMES LORIMER SOUPER (1898-1909), Gordon College, Khartoum. [At present in Aberdeen.] United States (New York) :—WILLIAM MACKINTOSH (18931896), Royal Insurance Co., Ltd., 84 William Street, New York. West Indies (Trinidad) :—ARCHIBALD YOUNG (1889-94), c/o Messrs. Alston & Co., Ltd., Port of Spain. When accepting office for New Brunswick, W. M. Kesson writes :—" Having been one of the first ' Free Scholars' to be admitted to the School, I have always felt that I owed a debt which I have never been able to repay, so if I can now be of any service to a ' Grammar ' boy in this part of the Empire, I shall consider that at last I have made a small beginning towards recognition of what I owe." Any member of the F.P. Club who is going out for the first time to a town or district abroad where there is a Club Consul can appeal with confidence to him for advice and assistance. Club Consuls will gladly answer inquiries from all who desire information about their particular area.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

Members of the F.P. Club Resident Abroad. The publication of the list in the last issue of the Magazine aroused widespread interest among members of the Club and others interested in the School. A number of additional names and addresses, and also some corrections, have been received by the Secretary of the Club, and these are given in the following supplementary list. It is particularly requested that the Secretary be informed of all changes in the addresses of members of the Club resident abroad.

EUROPE. ITALY. LAWRENCE, Robert D., M.A., M.D., 9 Via Tornabuoni, Florence.

AFRICA. UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA. Transvaal. BRUCE, Thomas C., New Primrose Mine, Box 193, Germiston. CAMPBELL, Andrew, M.B., 14 Conmel Chambers, Standard Bank, Eloff

Street, Johannesburg.

FINLAYSON, Finlay W. N., Eloff Street Branch of Standard Bank,

Johannesburg.

KENYA COLONY. BRODIE, Hector, Kilimara, Nyeri. ROSS, Simon Douglas, Kyanambaka Estate, Masindi, Uganda.

EGYPT AND ANGLO-EGYPTIAN SUDAN. MacNEILL, A. G., Gabel Aulia Dam, Khartoum, Sudan.

ASIA. IRAQ. GERRARD, Frederick W., C.I.E., Deputy Inspector General of Police,

Baghdad.

INDIA. Bombay. THOMSON, George Alexander, Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and

China, Bombay.

United Provinces. BENTON, William Stephen, Assistant Executive Engineer, Oudh and

Rohilkhand State Railway, Shahjahanpur.

Bengal. LEITH, George S. S., manager, Messrs. Tandale & Clark, Ltd., jute mer-

chants, Serajgunge, E. B. Railway.

Assam. BOWER, James A., Maijan Tea Estate, Dibrugarh P.O. FINLAYSON, Robert I, M., Sealkotee Tea Estate, Chabua P.O., Upper

Assam.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

Burma. STRACHAN, Arthur W., Namhkam P.O., Northern Shan States, via Bahmo.

FEDERATED MALAY STATES. Perak. ROBERTSON, Douglas Grieme, Telok Buloh Estate, Utan Melintang, Lower Perak. •

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS. Singapore.

DUFFUS, Alan A., M.B., D.P.H., Assistant Medical Officer of Health.

SUMATRA. WALKER, Alexander Moir, Pagai Dgawa Estate, Pematang, Siantar, E.C.

NORTH AMERICA. CANADA. Ontario. GRANT, Gordon Cooper, Forestry Department, The University, Toronto. THOMSON, Roderick, Dominion Bank, Toronto.

Alberta. LIGERTWOOD, John C. M., c/o Messrs. Marwick, Mitchell & Co., 27 'Canada Life Building, Calgary.

British Columbia. MERRYLEES, Louis Francis, go Northern Construction Co. & J. W. Stewart, Vancouver.

UNITED STATES. EDWARD, Alexander Wishart, Y.M.C.A., Grand Junction, Colorado.

WEST INDIES. Trinidad. JACKSON, Robert Cecil, c/o Messrs. Gordon, Grant & Co., Ltd., Port of Spain. MILLER, Noel W. J., c/o Messrs James Miller & Co., Ltd., Port of Spain.

MEXICO. COOK, Charles Grant, c/o Mexican Light and Power Co., Ltd., Mexico City.

THE SCHOOL WAR MEMORIAL. Subscriptions Received from 14th June, 1921, to 16th November, 1922. .. £18 1 6 Net proceeds from School Gymnastic Assault in June, 1921 1 13 9 .. .. .. Grammar School Tennis Club, June, 1921 .. Ogg, Mrs. M., in memory of her dear son, Lieut. Lindsay Ross Ogg, 1 1 0 .. I.A.R.O., for remembrance on 11th November, 1921 2 10 0 .. .. .. Grammar School Debating Society, May, 1922 Watson, Mrs. George, 138 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen, in memory 4 0 0 .. .. of Captain Douglas Christian Watson, R.E. 24 5 6 .. Net proceeds of School Gymnastic Assault in May, 1922 .. 5 0 0 .. .. „ 1922 .. June, Grammar School Tennis Club,

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

Shepherd, Rev. James, M.A., D.D., 6 Bon-Accord Crescent, Aberdeen .. £5 5 Milne, James W., C.A., 51 North John:Street, Liverpool, (additional) 50 0 Fiddes, James, Jun., Rubislaw Den House, Aberdeen (additional) 5 5 Christie, Provost A. W., 43 Gordon Street, Huntly (additional) .. 50 0 Patterson, James, 104 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen .. 2 2 Crombie, John, 18 Rubislaw Den North, Aberdeen (additional) .. 5 5 Duffus, James C., 7 Golden Square, Aberdeen .. 5 5 Cruickshank, A. T., Friendville, Great Western Road, Aberdeen 10 0 McBain, Alan, 12 Rubislaw Den North, Aberdeen (additional) .. 2 2 Miller, Douglas G., Rector, Aberdeen Grammar School .. 5 5 Souper, Dr. H. Ross, 13 Victoria Street, Aberdeen (additional) .. 2 2 Robson, Dr. T. 0., 6 Rubislaw Place, Aberdeen (additional) .. 2 2 Esslemont, Ranald, King's Acre, King's Gate, Aberdeen (additional) 10 0 Slessor, Dr. T. S., 78 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen (additional) .. . 2 2 Scott, James, 26 Forest Road, Aberdeen .. 10 0 Walker, Norman J. J., 12 Bayview Road, Aberdeen (additional) 5 0 Kennaway, Charles G., 16 Gladstone Place, Aberdeen .. .. L. I Craigen, W. G., 39 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen (additional) .. • 2 2 Shepherd, Simpson, 52 King Street, Aberdeen (additional) I 0 .. Leith, James, 66 Queen's Road, Aberdeen .. .. .. .. 1 1 Nicol, R. Gordon, Queen's Road, Aberdeen (additional) .. .. 10 0 Hunter, Stephen J., 93 Desswood Place, Aberdeen .. .. .. I 1 Edwards, Herbert J., 54 Queen's Road, Aberdeen (additional) .. 1 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0

0 0

Subscriptions Intimated. Falconer, Harvey G., 14 Albert Street, Aberdeen (additional) •• Watt, Charles, 5 St. Swithin Street, Aberdeen (additional) .. Williamson, J. J., 88 Fountainhall Road, Aberdeen (additional) .. Horne; A. R., 13 Bayview Road, Aberdeen (additional) .. Wilson, H. N. B., Eddislea, West Cults (additional) .. Mearns, Cornelius, 385 Great Western Road, Aberdeen (additional) Morrison, George A., Robert Gordon's Secondary School, Aberdeen Watt, Alexander M., Gladstone Place, Aberdeen (additional) .. Anderson, Robert J., Jun., 60 Forest Road, Aberdeen (additional) Watt, Edward W., 13 Forest Road, Aberdeen (additional) Robson, Alexander, 39 Bonnymuir Place .. Robson, Thomas F., 39 Bonnymuir Place ..

£20 0 10 0 5 5 5 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 10 0 2 2 10 0 2 10 2 10

The Treasurer reports on 16th November, 1922, that he has received in all subscriptions amounting to .. .. Subscriptions intimated but not paid at that date amounted to .. .. ..

73 2 0

Total subscriptions received or promised .. Amount held by the F.P. Club on account of the Recreation Ground Fund ..

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0

0 0

£3,733 18 2

£3,807 0 2 170 3 3 £3,977 3 5

Subscriptions should be sent to Mr. John AlcBain, C.A., 11 Golden Square, Aberdeen, the Honorary Treasurer of the Memorial Fund.

F.P. Motor Section. A meeting of present and former pupils interested in the resuscitation of the Motor Section was held in the Palace Hotel on Thursday, 8th June. The attendance was not all that might have been desired, but the small band of enthusiasts who did assemble selected from amongst themselves a Committee consisting of the following :—James P. Lillie, H. J. Edwards, A. V. R. Don, A. J. Chambers-Hunter, and D. P. Cochran. It was decided that the programme should consist mainly of social outings, and that the subscription for

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

season 1922 be 3s. 6d. The following are brief summaries of the runs which have taken place during the season. Saturday, 1st July.—A run to Aboyne by Echt and Lumphanan. The weather on the route to Aboyne was ideal. On arriving the party indulged in a short walk in order to stretch their cramped limbs before tea. Thereafter they remounted their machines to pursue their homeward journey—which, unfortunately, was accompanied by incessant rain—this time by the North Deeside Road to Banchory, where some of the tanks were replenished, and one unfortunate member had a puncture in his rear tyre repaired. Aberdeen was safely reached about 7 p.m., and thus terminated a most enjoyable although somewhat damp first post-War run. Thursday, 27th July.—This run took place in the evening. Queen's Gate was left at 6 p.m., and Bridge of Dye was reached in record time, via the South Deeside Road. A speed competition, covering 31 miles, from the Bridge of Dye to the top of Cairn o' Mount, then took place for those members desirous of proving the reliability of their machines. The results Av. M.P.H. were as follows :— 33 . . . 1st—A. J. Chambers-Hunter, 3 H.P. A.R.C. . 1 ,,, Angus Mackay 21 H.P. Massey Arran (Jap) 2nd equal { D. P. Cochran 21 H.P. Massey Arran (Blackburne) } 31 . 25 . . 4th—R. B. Williamson, 31 H.P. Martinsyde . 20 . 5th—J. N. Milne, 2i H.Y. Ivy . . . . . 19 . . 6th—H. G. Chambers-Hunter, 3 H.P. Ivy . Although the modus operandi of the timing system might not altogether have found favour in the eyes of the members of some of our local clubs, it was unanimously agreed to be as nearly correct as could be expected, taking into consideration the fact that the Section is not yet in possession of stop-watches. The speed hogs, together with their less daring colleagues, then betook themselves to Banchory, where their appetites were temporarily appeased. Aberdeen was reached at about 11 p.m., just as darkness was coming on. Sunday, 27th August.—While Aberdeen was still more or less in the arms of Morpheus, a substantial proportion of the Section had mustered at Rubislaw for a day's outing. No very definite plans had been settled upon, as the weather seemed likely to live up to its reputation of this year. After slight trouble en route with the belt of one machine, Stonehaven was reached, but by then the weather had broken down and shelter was taken in a garage. Just after resuming, another unfortunate member broke the front forks of his machine, and had reluctantly to about-wheel and steer a homeward course. The run was continued through some of the finest mud tracks in Scotland. by Drumtochty and its splashes—which the majority avoided, as they were already uncomfortably wet—to Clatterin' Brig. By this time glorious sunshine prevailed, and lunch, which had obviously been in close relationship with Jupiter Pluvius, was quickly dispatched with great gusto. The climb over Cairn o' Mount was accomplished without diffiehlty by all save one machine, which displayed a marked disinclination to attaining higher altitudes. However, with the aid of a little pressure behind, and a muffler attached to the carrier of the preceding bicycle, the two-stroke ultimately reached the top. Thence by Bridge of Dye, more splashes, and the Shooting Greens, Potarch was reached. After tea, tracks were made via the South Deeside Road to Aboyne, thence by Tarland and Tullochvenus to Echt, from which the party returned home early in the evening after a very enjoyable day. Sunday, 1st October.—Outing to Kildrummy Castle. The largest turnout of the Section so far was witnessed when the members assembled at Rubislaw Car Terminus at 10.15 a.m. On arrival at Kildrummy Castle, lunch was partaken of in the open, amidst the picturesque scenery. The weather was ideal. The party was thereafter informally conducted round the ruins by Mr. W. Douglas Simpson, M.A., F.S.A., and the leading features in the architectural history of the buildings were explained in Mr. Simpson's usual lucid and extremely interesting manner. The machines were then remounted, and, via Glenkindie and Boltinstone, Torphins was reached at 5 p.m. where tea was served at the Learney Arms Hotel. Upon reaching home, the members unanimously agreed that this, the last run for 1922, had been a most befitting conclusion to the season's activities. Although the membership at present does not exceed 35, it is expected that by the end of next season this number will be substantially increased, and, in any case, it is felt that the desirability of a Motor Section has been amply proved by the account of this season's outings. Next season's activities will commence in April, when it is hoped that an acceptable programme will include at least one outing per fortnight and a few week-end trips,—D.P.C.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

F.P. Cricket Section.

•

Season 1922 has been one of ups and downs for the Cricket Section, the team being most erratic. As in previous years, slack fielding has nearly always been the cause of defeat. To the spectator the F.P.s must be a most unreliable team. To see them in the field on two successive Saturdays one would hardly know them as the same team—one week positively brilliant in every department of the game ; the next, most disappointing. In the Aberdeenshire Cup Competition, after administering a severe defeat to a strong Mannofield XI in the first round, Huntly, the F.P.'s Utz noir, put an end to their hopes by beating them by four wickets. One feels that this was a game which might easily have been won but for one or two unfortunate mistakes. The two F.P.s who seemed to be batting most confidently, namely, McBain and Riddell, were both run out when thoroughly set, and there were also one or two bad fielding mistakes. In the League Competition 4 matches were won, 1 drawn, and 2 lost— both disgraceful performances. The F.P.s should not be beaten by teams like St. Ronald and Inverurie Locos. Perhaps the best performance of the year was the victory over Huntly at Huntly. The tour, as in previous years, was most enjoyable, though the results were not of the best. When one considers, however, that the team were up against, among others, two All-Scotland bowlers in the persons of R. W. Sievwright of Arbroath and W. Anderson of Dunfermline, it does not seem so bad. Games were played against Arbroath United, Perthshire XI, Fifeshire XI, and Sunnyside Asylum, those against Clackmannan and Stirling not being possible owing to weather and other reasons. The closest game was at Perth, where the home team only won by a narrow margin. This year the Section, for the first time in its existence, topped the third century. This was against Mannofield XI, when 301 runs for 9 wickets were registered against 78 all out for the other side. In this game the scoring was most consistent, the principal run-getters being C. H. Webster, 72 ; R. S. B. Hervey, 58 ; J. T. Sorley, 49 ; and J. L. Riddell, 44 not out. On the whole, runs were more difficult to get this year. This was perhaps due to the weather, as the wickets were generally soft and unsuited to high scoring. Among other good individual performances were the following C. H. Webster—v. Inverurie Locos., 42 ; v. 'Shire, 34. A. McBain—v. Crescent, 69 ; v. Huntly, 45. G. N. Gordon—v. Mannofield XI, 45 ; v. Crescent, 42. J. R. L. Cruickshank—v. School, 62. During the year Webster, McBain, Sorley, Gordon, and Hervey were chosen on various occasions to play for Aberdeenshire in Scottish Counties Championship matches, and helped materially in bringing the Championship to Aberdeen. It is hoped that next year some effort will be made to provide adequate labour at Rubislaw for the niaintenance and upkeep of the grounds. There is something wrong when, in order to get good practice, the F.P.'s 1st XI have to join the Aberdeenshire Club. One feels that if good practice wickets were available at Rubislaw, the enthusiasm among cricket-playing F.P.s would be much greater, and possibly some hidden talent might be discovered. At any rate, it would be a great boon to those who do not join the county club. The Committee trust that next year will see an increasing membership, and would like to point out that anyone joining is always assured of a fair number of games, as evening matches are arranged all through the season, in which any who care may play. The next Annual General Meeting will be held in March, 1923.

F.P. Tennis Section. The Tennis Section officially closed its season on Friday, 22nd September, when a most enjoyable and highly successful dance was held in Kennaway's Rooms. Some thirty couples were present, and delightful music was provided by Mrs. Bush. The Secretary, on behalf of the Section, desires here to express his sincere thanks to Mr. W. B. S. Pigge for the admirable way in which he carried out the dance arrangements. Members of the Section will be glad to hear that the Field Committee have granted the Section permission to hold a guest night once every week, when each member will be entitled to introduce one visitor (either lady or gentleman). Guest night next season will be held on Wednesday evenings, when, by the courtesy of the Rector of the School, the Section will have the exclusive GEO. T. SIMPSON, Hon. Sec. use of the courts from 7 p.m. onwards.

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

F.P. Rugby Section. The prospects for the present season are uncommonly bright both for the 1st XV and 2nd XV, as the former have practically all last year's team to fall back on, and have, in addition, J. McLeod of Glasgow 'Varsity and E. R. Watt, Aberdeen 'Varsity, to assist them. Up to the present no games have been lost by the 1st XV, who have scored 99 points without a single point being registered against them. The 2nd XV are also in good form and have been beaten only once, by School in a friendly game. A start has just been made with the League games, and it is hoped that any intending members will communicate with the Secretaries :1st XV.—D. S. Stewart, View House, View Terrace. 2nd XV.—J. W. L. Bain, 2 King's Gate. Amongst the teams played by the 1st XV are—Kelvinside Academicals, • Aberdeenshire, Gordonians, and Aberdeen University ; and games have also been arranged with those of Fife, Dundee High School F.P.s, and an Inverness team. Kelvinside Academicals were beaten in a very well-contested game at Rubislaw on 25th September by one dropped goal and two tries to nil. Gordonians have been played twice, and beaten both times, by 21 points and 22 points to nil. 'Varsity were beaten by 13 points to nil on 21st October, and Aberdeenshire were beaten by a large margin the previous Saturday. We can certainly look forward to a successful season, perhaps too successful, as there is very little opposition.

F.P. Hockey Section. The Hockey Section held its Annual General Meeting in the School on 7th September, when the following officials were appointed :—Captain, D. P. Cochran ; Vice-Captain, J. Norman Milne ; Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, Norman S. Rose, 16 Rubislaw Terrace. Members of Committee—Messrs. W. N. Stewart and A. G. Walker. 2nd XI :—Captain, R. B. Williamson ; Vice-Captain, O. G. Prosser ; Honorary Secretary, J. W. S. Cobban, 70 Ashley Road. Prospects for this season are very bright. Most of our old members have returned and several beginners have joined us, so that this year three elevens are being run. Arrangements have been made whereby those at School who wish to take up the game can play in one of the two junior elevens at a reduced subscription. Mr. James W. Crombie, 18 Rubislaw Den North, has been appointed to act as Secretary for the 3rd XI. Several friendly matches have been played this season with varying success, Stonehaven beating us twice, by the odd goal in each case, and R.F.A. and St. Ronald Strollers being well beaten by the F.P.s. The first League fixture was played at King's on Saturday, 28th October. What a spectator described as the fastest game seen in Aberdeen since the War was played, 'Varsity finishing winners at a score of 7-5. 'Varsity's opportunity for mid-week practice gave them the necessary training to last out a hard game rather better than the F.P.s. It would be invidious to attempt to pick out one player more than another. The whole team played well, each gave his best, and the combination between them was all that could be desired. Any F.P. or Grammar School boy who wishes to take up Hockey should immediately get in touch with one of the Secretaries, as there is still room for one or two new members.

List of New Members of the Club. LIFE MEMBERS. Lillie, James Pickford (1913-18), 44 Ashley Gardens, Aberdeen. Menzies, Thomas (1905-10), M.B., Captain, R.A.M.C., c/o Messrs. Holt & Co., 3 Whitehall Place, London, S.W. 1. Macbeth, David (1884-85), Constitutional Club, Northumberland Avenue, London. , Lewis, John A. (1914-20), 11 Queen's Road, Aberdeen. Additional Subscriptions from Life Members. The following, who became Life Members of the Club when the subscription was £2. 2s., have remitted the additional sum of £3. 3s. in order to bring their subscriptions up to the new rate of £5. 5s. •.— Wilson, Louis G. O. (1872-75), Hawaii Mill Co., Ltd., Hilo, Hawaii, T.H., U.S.A. Christie, Alexander W. (1878-87), 43 Gordon Street, Huntly.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine.

Mackintosh, John Falconer (1902-12), c/o Anglo-Siam Corporation, Ltd., Lakon Lampang, Northern Siam. ORDINARY MEMBERS. Mursell, Donald Fraser (1921-22), Gray, Alexander William (1881-83), 142 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen. 131 High Street, Inverurie. Bruce, Allister Leslie (1914-22), 58 Watson, James John (1881-82), Fonthill Road, Aberdeen. Market Place, Inverurie. Bodie, William George Rowntree Emslie, Arthur Raymond Gordon (1913-22), 30 Clifton Road, (1919-22), 82 Mile End Avenue, Aberdeen. Aberdeen. Brown, Kenneth Stewart (1913-21), Emslie, William Harold (1919-22), 63 Devonshire Road, Aberdeen. 82 Mile End Avenue, Aberdeen. Aitken, John Abel (1918-22), Union Wilson, Robert Louis (1905-11), c/o Street, Aberdeen. Messrs. Logan & Bryan, 810 Gill, James M.C. (1910-22), "Rogell," Second Avenue, Seattle, WashBucksburn, Aberdeen. U.S.A. ington, Bain, John William Laing (1915-22), Bruce, Robert (1881-82), Heather2 King's Gate, Aberdeen. wick, Keithhall, Inverurie. Margach, Alastair James (1915-22), Gibb, Maxwell Grant (1913-22), 294 113 Broomhill Road, Aberdeen. Aberdeen. Road, Western Great Taylor, George James Gibson, (1917Muir, Thomas Scott (1886-87), 4 1922), 69 Bonnymuir Place, Savile Terrace, Edinburgh. Aberdeen. Macdonald, Roderick Strachan (1914Birkett, Frederick Arthur, (1920-22), 1921), 72 Beaconsfield Place, 16 Melville Terrace, Edinburgh. Aberdeen. Archibald, Alexander Spring (1915Turner, Edward (1918-21), 111 Brigh1922), Mason Lodge, Skene. ton Place, Aberdeen. Macdonald, John (1919-22), SchoolAngus, Albert John (1919-20), St. house, Methlick. Arnauds, Raemoir Road, BanHanna, David (1916-22), 112 Desschory. Place, Aberdeen. wood Aitken, Frederick Robert (1918-21), Finlayson, Kenneth Macdonald (191037 Beechgrove Terrace, Aberdeen 1922), 5 Albert Street, Aberdeen. Forshaw, Harry A. B. (1917-21), Duffus, William Brand (1908-16), 11 19 Ashley Road, Aberdeen. Gardens, Aberdeen. Queen's (1917-21), Melville, James Irvine McDougall, James Lyle, jun. (1915179 Skene Street West, Aber1922), 7 Carden Place, Aberdeen. deen. Morgan, George Henry (1919-22), Davidson, Sinclair Smith (1915-20), Kirkland House, Banchory. 26 St. Swithin Street, Aberdeen. Innes, Alexander Leslie (1915-22), Michie, Alexander William (1910-22), "Airlie," Bieldside, Aberdeen. 24 Polmuir Road, Aberdeen. Smith, James Edward (1916-22), 150 Stirrat, Alexander Young (1911-20), Road, Aberdeen. Broomhill 11 Devonshire Road, Aberdeen. Douglas, Percival Howard (1913-22), Stirrat, James (1911-22), 11 DevonGreen Den, Dunnottar, Stoneshire Road, Aberdeen. haven. Rae, James Ogilvy (1912-21), BrookGeorge Tyrell Nicol (1918-22), Wood, lands, Grange Road, Sutton, 21 Argyll Place, Aberdeen. Surrey. Johnston, William Ellis (1917-22), Lamb, Cecil John (1915-22), 36 Aber11 Ferryhill Place, Aberdeen. geldie Terrace, Aberdeen. Ewan (1920-22), 111 6th Mackay, (1911-22), Thow, William George Avenue, Mayfair, Johannesburg. 170 Skene Street West, Aberdeen. Robb, Norman George (1913-22), 10 Dickson, Andrew (1911-22), Hilton Carden Place, Aberdeen. Manse, 322 Clifton Road, WoodGeorge Angus (1917-22), 16 Taylor, side. Elinbank Road, Aberdeen. McKenzie—Smith, Alexander (1904Anderson, George Forbes Mennie 1907), 23 Kingsley Road, Maid(1911-13), 26 Braemar Place, stone, Kent. Aberdeen. 132 (1910-22), Gray, Alexander Henderson, Alistair M. (1912-22), 14 King's Gate, Aberdeen. Westfield Terrace, Aberdeen. Brodie, Hector (1906-17), Kilimara, Clark, John (1914-22), 371 Great Nyeri, Kenya, Colony. Western Road, Aberdeen. (1917-22), Davidson, Ian Thomson Mitchell, William Alexander (19111 Morningside Road, Mannofield, 1922), 526 King Street, Aberdeen. Aberdeen. Peters, William, M.A. (1900 — 06), Harkins, William (1916-22), 15 WallCommercial Mission to British Aberdeen. field Place, Russia, c/o Foreign Office, Stewart, John (1898-1905), View London. House, View Terrace, Aberdeen. Macmillan, William G. (1916-22), 32 Aberdeen. Ferryhill Place,

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(FOUNDED PREVIOUS TO 1256.)

Rector

DOUGLAS GORDON MILLER, M.A. (Hons.) (Oxon.)

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, Intermediate, 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 Qualifying Examination, while the Senior Classes are examined for the Intermediate and Leaving Certificates 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 HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. Headmistress

(ALBYN PLACE.) Miss LUCY L. WARD, B.A. (Load.)

HE HIGH SCHOOL provides a liberal education for Girls from 5 or 6 to 18 or 19 years of age, and aims at fitting them for home life and for professions open to women. The School is organized in three Departments—a Junior, an Intermediate, and a Secondary. The curriculum in the Junior and Intermediate Departments embraces the ordinary branches of an English Education, and in the Secondary or . Higher Department, pupils receive advanced instruction in English Literature, Latin, Mathematics, French, German, Natural Science, Drawing and Painting, Artistic Needlework, Domestic Economy, Cookery, etc. The course in the Secondary Department also includes preparation for the Leav- • ing Certificate of the Scottish Education Department and for the Entrance Examinations to the Universities. 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. The School buildings occupy an excellent and spacious site in the West end of the City. The furnishing and equipment of the School comprise, in addition to numerous Class-rooms fitted up with many modern conveniences for teaching purposes, an Assembly Hall, Art Rooms, a Lantern Room, a School Library of 2,ooo volumes, spacious Cookery and Laundry Rooms, and a suite of Laboratories of the most approved description for the teaching of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.

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.

WILLIAM GRAY Tailor and Outfitter, HOLBURN JUNCTION, ABERDEEN. We are Official Outfitters to the Grammar School, and hold Stocks of everything for present and former pupils in the official colours. Your patronage will be esteemed. 'PHONE 2211.

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