The Influence of the Scout Uniform The birthday of Sir Robert Baden-Powell a few weeks ago was the occasion of many tributes to the good work accomplished by the Boy scout movement. There was scarce-a mention of its great sartorial achievement, but many a mother who has brought up sufficient sons to have a knowledge of boy fashions now and in the early years of the century has cause to bless the day that first saw the neat shorts, the turned-back stockings, and the tidy, dark coloured shirt of the Scout uniform.
They were trying times for boys and mothers before this revolution began. Fitness for purpose wai jover considered. Mothers followed either the Romantic or the Little Man schools in dressing their offspring. An outstanding example of the former was the costume popu-Jarized by the "Little Lord Fauntleroy." Energetic infants, capable of wearing out garments of leather were dressed in picturesque velvet suits whose only justification was the thrill of pride they sent] to the maternal hearts. The number of Little Man costumes was without end. Many unfortunate children had to wear a sailor suit, complete with bell-bottomed trousers: and a_cap bearing the legend 'H.M.S. So-nnd-So." They were the scorn of all right-minded contemporaries along their line of march. There were also little sportsmen in Norfolk suits with an immense number of pockets—clothes with posbilities those, and well liked. Little business men in bowler hats abounded, and little aristocrats toppers, little men, in fact, in all fashions and on all models. You can see them in the drawings Cruikshank, sore with their your
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.