Unless you pore over the detail, it is all too easy to cast the Boy's Own Paper as witless nostalgia, and adventure for the suburbs. It is a very nasty piece of militaristic and racist propaganda for the next war, with martial endeavour against tinted Johnny Foreigner followed by a feature on making Bird Tables out of nail clippings. And it is 1913/14, so the beefy editors did not have long to wait.There is a Marching Song all ready.

Nevertheless it does throw up some odd images - mainly here lodged in CURIOSITIES, the head appearing over the cliff and the hurling of a burning log. Homicidal sealions and an alligator framed in French windows amuse. In technology there are useful articles about being a cinematographer, and a comedic anticipation of the Mobile.

It is useful to see the British attitudes to Foreigners expressed in a bestiary of imagery. Chinamen have pigtails. Indians have Turbans and Curly ended shoes. Thugs wear flat caps. But none of them is a match for the Boy, clean of limb and mind, with pluck and firm of fist. How this borders on Ladslove, see Curiosities, a poem WANTED - A BOY. I rest my case.