MR. CROCKETT'S METHOD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLI, Issue 317, 4 December 1906, Page 1

MR. CROCKETT'S METHOD

Mr S. ,R. Crockett,', the novelist, was entertained ' to a. complimentary din-ncr at - Daltfoattic, EircutJbrigMshire,' : fecently by a number pf friends "and bdniirers belonging? to his native ■ "Galltaway. "Sometimes," skid :iMTiCrockett, «n ro plying 'to .the 1 ' •-'toast of his health, "it is said to me, |Ah '. why do you not .write us another 'Raiders,'i another -'Lilac Surebonnct,' another 'Sticlril Minister?' Well, it is like this. Ido not ncvcl to 'tell a Galloway /audience anything about *the rotation of crops. Suppose that, year after year for 10 1 years onb of you sowed only o»o 1 kipd of crop. What would be tho eonsoquonCG'<t "The soil would bo ' exhausted, and Ibefope that even tha landlord's patience. So with books —which are the crops of the mind. You cannot go on producing the same kind of crop. After each book is finished the brain becomes something .like cold, "boiled turnips. To recover "its elasticity, to strike fresh _and unexhausted 'soil, ono must try^a new crop something' as different- 'as possi'blc from the old. There: are, besides, for the professional author, not one land' lord 'bu-t many —editors and publishers, vtJkj out of their wisdom desire such and such a crop, and will only pay according to their needs. ' I had a conversation not long ago in ' connection with my literary,labours wtyh an old goodwife among th-3 hills. 'Aye,' she said, 'and hoo do ye like it —as far as ye ba igotten ?* I 'informed my questioner .that up to the pressnt time of asking T like it fairly well. 'An dae yo leeve on buicks ?' I intimated that so far 'I had not had to 1 take advantage of the Bankruptcy 'Acts. CAwcol, awoel.' said Mary, .' mony a shift in this wart." " , i ( ,

>-C " - • ••■••■■ 7 1 The .^greafisst fur market in the world is at .Leipzig, in Saxony, where the fur exchange does business equal to from throe _ to*three and a half million pounds v yearly. Of Astrachan alone 1,000,000 skins are imported from Bokhara, equal in value to some £700,000. - Practising and laying of mines is carried out withfso much secrecy by the British'navy S; t6at the general public get very little chance of watching these interestin}; operation^. Few occupations are-more dangerous, and probably not ono in the Navy requires so much skill and nerve. ■ Two brothers named Ryder were charged at Gloucester with cruelty to a pqr.y which? wasji<3o years old, and had been pqrcJmseW&reccnUy with a set of harness for lOsFod. They promised to destroy it, and were discharged. A young man named Bernier suddenly became insane in Mantes-sur-Seine, locked himself in an upper room, and fired on -tke passers-ty in the street wifch a rifle. He quickly cleared the street, ' which was then barricaded at