THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8154, 2 June 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1906.

A cable message received some weeks ago seated that the Leaguejof frontiersmen had reoeired the approval of the King. How it was conceived and has been brought to realisation is explained by the founder, Mr Roger Pooook, in a long aftiole in Lloyd's

News. Mr Pooook says: "On Christmas Eve, 1904, an unknown man, without wealth or influence, wrote a letter to ten of the London papers. From that letter, within fourteen months, there sprang into existenoe a corps, approved by the British Government, governed by a powerful and illustrious council, and claiming already no less than 5,000 men. . . . At the time of the Diamond Jubilee 600 men were gathered together in Loudon to represent the armed forces of all the frontiers of the Empire. This 'Colonial Contingent'—of Negroes, uhinamen, Malays, natives of India and all the breeds of our own race—was invited by the Admiralty to the Naval Keview at Spithead. On the way home by train from Portsmouth to London, tired and thirsty, we caught a pedlar with fruit, looted his entire stock, and threw enough silver into his basket to make amends for the robbery. Then we white men got together in a long third-class carriage, and had the first conference ever held by the Frontiersmen of the Empire. The Africanders invited the rest of us to a tea-party to meet the Boers, jolly good fellows, they said, and capital shots. The entertainment came off all right a couple of years later, and we who had been invited' wont to the party. It was there on the veldt that we, the Frontiersmen of the Empire, learned that although we hailed from the uttermost parts of the earth, we were members of one great brotherhood."

About a week after the conference in the train Mr Pocook, a total stranger, sent in his oard ito the editor of Lloyd's Weekly, and offered his services, as a special correspondent in Western Canada. "The editor wrote out a cheque—it seems incredible—and so a member of the first conference set out to ride across the Canadian Plains, to serve as a cowboy, to work as a gold miner, to climb mountains, to fight bush fires, and to report from real life the realities of the wilderness to|tho readers of a paper which has the largest oiroulation in the world. So came the second phase of the great idea—that the disturbing element in wild countries, the untamable adventurers, are the very men who, enrolled as mounted police, oecome the guardians of law and order, the defence of the British peace. The Brotherhood of the Frontier is a force for Imperial defence. When the correspondent was at home he shared rooms in Great Ormond Street with two other men. One of them had lately tried to raise an insurrection in China, but, being caught with a shipload of arms, found himself so muob disliked that he had been obliged to retire from public life for the term of twelve months' hard. Among our visitors were two or three other filibusters, a mercenary soldier who had fought under many flags, a fur trader, and a whisky runner from the Far West, a ohap returned empty from the beach gold diggings near Cape Horn, and the late Phil May. We oalled ourselves the Lost Legion Club and supposed that if we could collect all our brother adventurers and devote all our energies, not to getting into mischief, bat to the service of our country, we might be rather useful in time of war." *****

"The club broke up, and again the correspondent hit the trail which runs towards the sunset. Amid the tragio horrors of the Aaboroft trail to the Klondyke bo was captain of a packtraiu. Some sort of dim notion was forming that pack animals properly handled in war would be swifter than any wheeled transport. The idea was growing, and a few months later your correspondent was serving as a scuut in the South African war. So it came to be his fate to be punished for feeding grasa to bis horse by an offloer, who supposed that the natural diet of the aniimil was commissariat oats. The horse died, with the rest, of starvation, the lieutenant vanished, and the scout concluded ibat the military system was not the best possible way of using the servioes of Frontiersmen. If we are to be of real use we must form our own corps." Mr Pooock then began to read the lives of all the great adventurers, and found one fact common to all the stories—the adventurers always chose their own leader, and, having ohoaen, followed him to the death. "At last the idea was complete—that Frontiersmen form a great natural brotherhood, all hunting for trouble, and burning for service; that the natural rallying centre is a London club; that the brotherhood would glow into a sort of army fori Imperial defence, provided that the corps were oivilian, self-supporting, and self-governing in time of peace; that the mea would find their own leaders, and, applying methods of the wilderness, would become the swiftest mounted force on earth. 'I hat's what the founder wanted—but what did the tribe want? A letter of one hundred words in the London papers threw only a vague suggestion into the air, but it was like the matoh that sets the prairies on fire. Within six months the whole Empire was oonoerned, and fro-n every pro-

vinoe replies had come flying home. 'We want,' said the Frontier,, 'to be tested, not by medioal examination, but'by real trials in skill and enduranoe; we want to be trained not by drill, but by competition in shoot-' ing aud riding. We want to supply guides for every seat of war, soouts to watch the enemy, and every other branch of intelligence work in the field baoked oy swift Mounted Kifles and pioneers of all the useful trades.' But what did the Government want? Would the War Office objeot to us altogether? It took us five months to express in plain terms exactly what we wanted, bub only one month for the VTar Office to probe the whole subject to the bottom, and send a straightforward answer. 'We sympathise,' says the War Office, in its own guarded official language—'Go ahead!'

"And now, knowing at last exactly what we want, our affairs in the hands of a great (Jounoil of Frontiersmen, expert advisers, and practical business men, we go ahead, free to succeed, and trusted not to fail. And now for practical detail. Any white Britisher free to join, who wishes to serve the Empire, and who has worked, hunted, or fought in wild countries or at sea, may join the .Legion at once by sending half a guinea to the Secretary at 6, Adam Street, Strand,] London. If he is qualified, but does not want active service, the subscription is one guinea, If he is not qualified, the subscription is two guiineas. When it is ready, the Secretary will send a little bronze badge to be worn in the button-hole, and by this sigu the men of the Legion will know each other in every corner of the* earth. \. man with the badge will never be friendless again."