SCOUTS AND SMOKING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 10 June 1913, Page 4

SCOUTS AND SMOKING.

Should men who smoke advise boys not to? This question was raised the other day in the London Spectator, by a correspondent who objected to the decision of a meeting of Scoutmasters that "Scoutmasters who wanted to smoke might do so, though best ' not in the presence of the troops." He argued that this was a hypocritical attitude, and a hurtful one. "An act," he said, "must be either right or wrong, and if it ig not -fft to be done in the presence of the boys it is not fit to be done at other times." This is sound logic; but.it is irrelevant to the point at issue, for j smoking, if it is not right, is cer- | tainly not wrong. In a footnote the Spectator expresses the hope that the Scoutmasters will continue to smoke the pipes in peace, and adds: "It is an excellent thing that the boys be made tq feel that their selfdiscipline extends not merely to what is wrong in itself, but to what is tern-. porarily wrong, i.e., wrong for them though not for their elders. A poor man has ; no right to, plead the sight iof riches as an excuse for theft, and a Scout's honour must not be so feeble as to be unable to resist the sight of a pipe." *' This wholesome and. common-sense reasoning can be applied to oilier propositions than that Scoutmasters .should not smoke.