Robert Robert - Scouting for Boys

If you go out with a really trained Scout you will see that his eyes are constantly moving, looking out in every direction near and far, noticing everything that is going on.

Once I was walking with one in Hyde Park in London. He presently remarked, “T hat horse is going a little lame”. There was no horse near us, but I found he was looking at one far away across the Serpentine Lake. The next moment he picked up a peculiar button lying by the path. His eyes, you see, were looking both far away and near.

“Have You Seen a Man?”

In the streets of a strange town a Scout will notice his way by the principal buildings and side-streets, and by what shops he passes and what is in their windows ; also what vehicles pass him.

Most especially he will notice people—what their faces are like, their dress, their boots, their way of walking—so that if, for instance, he should be asked by a policeman, “Have you seen a man with dark overhanging eyebrows, dressed in a blue suit, going down this Street?” he should be able to give some such answer as “Yes—he was walking a little lame with the right foot, wore foreign-looking boots, was carrying a parcel in his hand. He turned down Gold Street, the second turning on the left from

here, about three minutes ago.”

Information of that kind has often been of the greatest value in tracing out a criminal.

You remember in the story of Kim how Kim was taught observation by means of a game in which he had to describe from memory a trayful of small objects shown to him for a minute and then covered over.

We use this “Kim’s Game”, because it is excellent practice for Scouts.

There was a revolutionary society in Italy called the Camorra, that used to train its boys to be quick at noticing and remembering things. When walking through the street of the city, the Camorrist would suddenly stop and ask his boy:

“How was the woman dressed who sat at the door of the fourth house on the right in the last street?” or, “What were the two men talking about at the corner three streets back?” or, “Where was the cab ordered to drive to, and what was its number?” or, “What is the height of that house and what is the width of its upper-floor window?” and so on. Or the boy was given a minute to look in a shop window, and then describe all that was in it.

It is easy enough to disguise yourself with simple means, if you know how. How many things did this man change to alter his appearance? Notice that the thing that makes the main difference is his changed posture.

A Scout must also have his eyes on the ground, especially along the edge of the pavement against the houses of the gutter. I have often found valuable trinkets that have been dropped, and which have been walked over by numbers of people, and kicked to one side without being noticed.

Every town Scout should know, as a matter of course, where the nearest chemist’s shop or drug store is (in case of accidents), and the nearest police “fixed point”, police station, doctor, hospital, fire alarm, telephone, ambulance station, etc.

Details of People

When you are travelling by train or bus, always notice every little thing about your fellow-travellers. Notice their faces, dress, way of talking, and so on, so that you could describe them each pretty accurately afterwards. And try to make out from their appearance and behaviour whether they are rich or poor (which you can generally tell from their boots), and what is their probable business, whether they are happy, or ill, or in need of help.

Notice the faces of people so that you will be able to recognize them.

But in doing this you must not let them see you are watching them, else it puts them on their guard. Remember the shepherd-boy I told you about in Yarn No. 2, who noticed the gipsy’s boots, but did not look at him, and so did not make the gipsy suspicious of him.

Close observation of people and ability to read their character and their thoughts are of immense value in trade and commerce, especially for a shop-assistant or salesman in persuading people to buy goods, or in detecting would-be swindlers.

It is said that you can tell a man’s character from the way he wears his hat. If it is slightly on one side, the wearer is supposed to be good-natured; if it is worn very much on one side, he is a swaggerer; if on the back of his head, he is bad at paying his debts; if worn straight on the top, he is probably honest but very dull.

The way a man (or a woman) walks is often a good guide to his character—witness the fussy, swaggering little man paddling along with short steps with much arm action; the nervous man’s hurried, jerky stride; the slow slouch of the loafer; the smooth, quick, and silent step of the Scout, and so on.

Can you tell their characters by the way they wear their hats?

Practise Observation

With a little practice in observation, you can tell pretty accurately a man’s character from his dress. The boots are very generally the best test of all the details of clothing. Sometime ago, I was with a lady in the country, and a young lady was walking just in front of us.

“I wonder who she is?” said my friend.

“Well”, I said, “Maybe you will know if you know whose maid she is.”

The girl was very well dressed, but when I saw her shoes I guessed that the dress had belonged to someone else, had been given to her and refitted by herself—but that as regards shoes she felt more comfortable in her own. She went up to the house at which we were staying—to the servants’ entrance—and we found that she was one of the maids.

I once was able to be of service to a lady who was in poor circumstances. I had guessed it from noticing, while walking behind her, that though she was well dressed the soles of her shoes were in the last stage of disrepair. I don’t suppose she ever knew how I guessed that she needed help.

It is an amusing practice, when you are in a railway carriage or omnibus with other people, to look only at their feet and guess, without looking any higher, what sort of people they are, old or young, well-to-do or poor, fat or thin, and so on, and then look up and see how near you have been to the truth.

I was speaking with a detective not long ago about a gentleman we had both been talking to, and we were trying to make out his character.

I remarked, “Well, at any rate, he is a fisherman”.

My companion could not see why—but then he was not a fisherman himself.

I had noticed a lot of little tufts of cloth sticking up on the left cuff of his coat. A good many fis hermen, when they take their flies off the line, stick them into their cap to dry; others stick them into their sleeve. When dry they pull them out, which often tears a thread or two of the cloth.

TOMMY THE TENDERFOOT No. 7 - TOMMY THE PATHFINDER

“Which way to turn me I cannot divine. Of friend or of foeman I can’t see a sign.”

Remember how Sherlock Holmes met a stranger and noticed that he was looking fairly well-to-do, in new clothes with a mourning band on his sleeve, with a soldierly bearing, and a sailor’s way of walking, sunburnt, with tattoo marks on his hand. What should you have supposed that man to be? Well, Sherlock Holmes guessed, correctly, that he had lately retired from the Royal Marines as a Sergeant, his wife had died, and he had some small children at home.