1935-10-18 — Page 3

HE

SAVED

100.

LIVES

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPHL FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1935.

Canadian Mountie Who Turned Pirate

Paria's Grand old MAI of the

River, Pere Chartier, who has saved 100 lives, lins received the Legion of Honour. He is Seine life-saver

and the picture above shows him in his work-a-day costume.

Mines That Did Not Explode

Visiting Hongkong

FOUNDER OF LEGION OF FRONTIERSMAN

Troubles Started (So He Joined The When He Became Famed Yokohama

A Missionary

Pirates!

I

"Telegraph" Special Representative

HAVE just met Hongkong's most amazing visitor.

His name is Colonel Roger Pocock. Thirty-one years ago he founded the Legion of Frontiersmen, which has for its motto: "For the Safety, Honour and Welfare of Our Sovereign and His Dominions."

Conservative "Who's Who" gives Colonel Pocock a bare two inches, and that for his work in connection with the League, whose ramifica- tions now spread throughout the Empire, includ- ing Hongkong.

But the story of the life of the grizzled veteran would fill volumes. In the span of man's allotted time, he has crammed six decades of amazing ad- BRITISH PARSIMONY venture. Even at seventy years of age he has

IN NORTH SEA WAR far from ended his remarkable career.

"When the war started, our Strangely enough, despite the, ties, including myself, were sent regular minesweeping force fact that he is an inveterate up the raging rapids to where they consisted of six old torpedo-traveller, he is visiting Hong-were kicking up a fuss. gunboats fitted

48 flect kong and China for the first "But when we got there we dis- sweepers.

time.

covered that we were on one side "At the time of the Armistice

of a raging, impassable torrent of It comprised 726 vessels-110 teen, joined the famous Canadian

In 1884, Pocock, a lad of nine-water and they were on the other. regular naval vessels, mostly North West Mounted Police as al built during the War, and divid-rookie, serving principally in ed into 20 fast sweeping flotillas; Saskatchewan, 52 hired paddle steamers of the

South Sea Missionary Colonc!

"It spoilt the war altogether. So I gave up fighting and be- a missionary in New Caledonia, down off the coast of Australia."

came It was during the troubled time type patronised by excursionists in Canadian history when Lamis in peace time; 412 fishing traw-tiel, the French half-breed, earned lers: 142 drifters; and 10 shal-fame in his country and a page in low-draught 'tunnel' minesweep-Encyclopardía. Britannica with his ers."

lighty, and mystical revolutionary activities.

Riel

was

That Is a measure of the growth -und importance of a service of

another remarkable which Taffrail writes in Swept character. His judicial murder on Channels," published recently. March 4, 1870 of Thomas Scott,,

was when all his troubles started. That, added Colonel Pocock, Nevertheless, he claims that as a missionary he was a great success, "To what do you attribute your success?" I asked,

"To my own virtue," he ans-

These little ships were at it an Orangeman from Ontario, rous-wered promptly. eternally, under conditions of fed against him the whole of Eny-

"TWOR INCHES IN WHO'S WHO

Captain Roger Pocock, whose amazing career is described on this page. He was the founder of the famous Lepion of Frontiersmen, and is on a world tour to all its bruncher."

ITALIAN TROOPS Professor And

DYING LIKE FLIES

Halifax, Oct. 10. Italian soldiers are dying tiko fties" of tropical diseases in East Africa, Captain John Smith, of the motoralip Cingalese Prince said upon his arrival here to-tiny from the Near East.

Captain Smith said discase has while shiploads blinded hundreds. of fever victims have been return ed to Italy.

The Cinpalese Prince in on a round the world freight and post- senger service by way of the Panama Canal, Manila and Hong- kong.

records nothing of his adventures most a decade, and "Who's Who" until 1914, when the Great War commenced.

Despite his amputated toes he managed to scrape through the medical examination, en listing within a few days of the declaration of war.

That Afternoon Siesta

PEOPLE who feel that they

simply must have "forty winks" after luncheon were de- fended by Professor D. F. Fraser-Harris, late professor of physiology at Dalhousie Univer- Isity, at the New Health Summer School, Margate, recently,

those

He was asked whether in the afternoon should follow who feel a strong desire to sleep that inclination or fight against it and go for a walk,

His answer was that some people should have an afternoon rest.

"Generally, speaking, the ten- deney to day is to take far too little sleep. People should 800 sleep, and even boys of nineteen that their children have enough

day," he added.

great danger and discomfort. The lish-speaking Canada. An expedi- There was a twinkle in his eyes tales included in this book, many tion was sent out but Riel decamp- when he answered the next quen for two weeks before they chuck-should sleep at least nine hours a

"I lasted for seven months," he confessed. "My virtue was aa- sumed, and I was fed up to the back teeth!"

of which are told by the personneled. Later he was, publicly thanked tion. of the sweepers themselves, bring by the lieutenant governor for his home the magnificent way in which activities against a threatened at- this service-half regular, half tack ou Canada by" American volunteer, from fisher-folk, yachts- Fenians, and in 1873 became a men, and even "dug out" flag member of the Dominion parlia- officers of the Navy-carried out ment. duties which saved Britain from starvation.

:

Sweeps Of 5,000 Miles "AL B rough computation the distance covered by the periodical sweeps cannot have been much less than 6,000 miles."

Naturally, the efficiency of the sweepers increased rapidly with experience. This is clearly shown by the number of losses sustained

by the minesweepers compared

with the number of mines swept

up.

the

In mine warfare, as in most

|

**Yokohama" Pirate "Who's Who" describes the next

In 1884, in response to a deputa tion from the Metis-French half-stage in this remarkable man's breeds-Riel attempted to win re-career as "senman with the Yoko dress for their wrongs.

hanta pirates"!

His own rashness and the in- 1 asked him what it meant. eplitude of Canadian politicians i "Oh, we used to go and rob the and officials brought on the famous warehouses along the northern Riel Rebellion, or, as Riel enlled const of their stocks of seal furs." it, the revolt for a "Heavenly Re-he said airily. public."

The Canadian "North

·

"Most of the warehouses were

there was too little done in the The professor declared that way of training a child's emotional life.

"I was in the Infantry, Forces ed me out because of my gammy leg," he said.

Then he joined the Horse Artil lery, in which he was appointed Captain, served on the Western Front-with-the Labour Corps, and spent the last two years of the toys instead of meeting so early in They could be given: beautiful war with the Royal Air Force.

life with grotesque and, morbid things, but that is the general tendency in modern life."

Six months after he was demobilised, Captain Pocock's address was "Somewhere at Sea", his next adventure tak

ing him to the icy wastes of FORMER ENEMY

the North Atlantic with a deep sca fishery research party, Apparently, this type of adven- ture proved highly successful, be-

on research

COMBATANTS

Mounted Police were sent to battle Naturally, they were very annoyed he remained at sen

West owned by Americans and Russians, cause "Who's Who" records that YEARLY MEETING PLAN the rebels, and late in April, 1884. at losing their furs and when they work for two years before joining, the nineteen year old youth who had ships handy, chased us.

But in 1921,

the Oxford University

gat besides me, a veteran of our ship was too slick for them, Scientific Expedition to Spitsber seventy, as he unfolded his tale and we safely landedl our precious fon. last night, heard the sound of cargoes at Vancouver, B.C., from whizzing bullets for the first time where they were sent to the London in his life.

market, to our great profit."

·

interview.

Brussels, Oct. 1. The reduction in the number of

of Ex-Servicemen, concluded here The 16th annual conference of Fidne, the Inter-Allied Federation ships sunk by mines in the latter part of the war was, of course. also due in large measure to the

to-day. A unanimous resolution He Was The Cook invention and more and more ex-

was passed instructing the execu tended use of the paravane.

"My previous experience

tive committee to establish con- Taffrail points out that one of "It was an inglorious end to my

stood me in good stead," he tact with the ex-Servicemen of all Halient points of the mine- career as a Mountie," the warrior the Boer

For the next ten years, until

said. "I was appointed to this nations with a view, to getting sweepers' war wna our compara-said. "All I got out of it was followed over fifty different pro-

War, Colonel Pocock: scientific expedition from Brit-together for the defence of pence. tive unpreparedness in 1914 for frost-bite.

ain's great scat of learning im The resolution added; minesweeping on any considerable

fessions, ranging from cow-punch- mediately my application was "It may be agreed between the Heale, mainly through our trust in

"Doctors in those days were "slushy."

ing to arctic exploration and received. You see, I was the delegations of all the countries the Hague Convention, which for

always keen on surgery, 50

cook!"

represented in Fidae and ex-Ser- bade the promiscuous laying of they amputated three toes and "Who's Who" records a remark somewhat dimmed his ardour for

Perhaps the six years at sen vice associations of former enemy mines outside territorial waters.

half my foot."

Countries that their delegates able ride along the Rocky Moun-adventure. In 1928, the man of meet at least once a year, in one other aspects of the sea, we paid in the worlis

But there was more in it than City of Mexico, an experience upon Loniton and there sought solace discuss questions of a nature to tains in 1899, from Cannda to the amazing adventures returned to of their respective countries, to the price of parsimony during the in Canada in those days. years preceding the war. "Mines," writes Taffrail, "were regarded as At the outbreak of Riel's second

house, the Carthusian monastery

"The Congress recognises the rather expensive luxuries, and our rebellion, as it is known to-day, a

Unpaid Looters mine-laying squadron in August, body of Pocock's companions, ad-

founded in the city of A.D. 1971 by right of each association to ea 1914, consisted of seven old 14-vancing to regain a small post at the South African Field. Force.

Then the Boer War broke out French birth.

Sir Walter de Manny, a knight of enemies, without constituting with

tublish contact with the in South Africa and Pocock joined 'knot, 3,400-ton cruisers.

Duck Lake, of which the rebels had

During the few years he spent

them any new organisation, but "The details and design of and twelve of their number killed. taken possession, were ambushed

In peace in his picturesque cottage on condition that they keep Fidac efficacious Russian 'Carbonit

"We were an unpaid looting there, Captain Pocock devoted all advised of their action and do not. mines, which were possessed by The rest of the Mountics were

corpa,"

he confessed, "Our his time to the Legion of Fron take any general decisions con- the Germans, were also fully quickly converged on the scene of

job was to remove as much of tiersman.

trary to the spirit of Fidnc." the enemy's food supplies-- known, and we could have had the trouble, and several minor en-

The ideal formulated in the icy French delegates, who is Deputy M. Marcel Hernud, ono of the them if we had cared to paygagements with Metis and Indians

cattle and things as we could. wastes of the sub-Arctic In 1903- the price £200 apiece.

that if 04 had become a reality and spread opposition was made to

for Paris explained the latter armed with rifles and

"After a while we became the rapidly throughout the Empire.

the ad- bows and arrows in approved Wild National Scouts, and worked with "Instead of that we evolved bad-Western style-preceded the final the surrendered Boers who, desir- the portion of a map of the world onomy countries, it wed a revision

To-day there are few corners of

mission of associations of former ly-designed mines of our own, struggle at Batoche, where Rieling to put an end which cost £40 each, and possessed had skilfully entrenched himself. no more than 4,000 of them when

came over to our side."

to the war, painted red that have not their fact that it necessitated a revision

quota of Frontiersmen. Hongkong. But the Mounties and volunteer war broke out. Not only did they troops stormed the position and the Pocock, fed up with African heat Kowloon, and each Armistice Day, Hongkong to-day by the Empress

When the Bour war ended, hua ita branch at 19 Waterloo Road, break adrift with appalling fre- rebels_iled-their-cause-abandoned-and-sunshine, decided on the other the toent members, in their pic of Russia. quency, but they failed to explode after three months of intensive extreme. Six months later he was taresque frontier uniforms, gather when struck. It was not until guerilla warfare. September 1917, that a new typo

of mine, mooring gear, and sinker

became available in any quantity."

Taffrall has written

A book

Looking For. Scalps

of the statues.

"Who Knowûs ?”!

ex-

shivering in Greenland,

to pay homage at the. Cenotaph. Then-llome to England,, per-. It was whilst there that he con- Their founder is now mak- haps to enjoy the remaining two ceived the idea of forming the ing his first Empire tour of the for three decades of an adventur "My last attempt to do a bit of

Legion of Frontiersmen.

Legion. J which

ous life.in peace-perhaps to feel With its creed of "For the He has already toured New Zea-once again the restless urge to scrapping on Canadian soil was in Safety, Honour and Welfare of land and Australla, where many continue until the end a career little-known deeds of the mine-Pocock told me.

is both a history of the the winter of 1887-88," Colonel Our Sovereign and His Domin- new units have been started since that must surely be one of the sweepers during the way; and a tribute to overy man who was scalps and a battery of Canadian

"The Indians were looking for wild-fire,

lons" the scheme, caught on like his visit.

His next destination is his be- "Who knows? were hi

most amazing. engaged upon that nerve-racking artillery, a gunboat and 160 Moun- its founder strangely quiet for nl-strongest, and he will depart from my-departure, task:

Work In connection with it kopt loved Canada, where the Legion is words, is I shook handa and took

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