KELSO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1874, 21 October 1887, Page 17

KELSO.

October 17. — The Rev. Gordon Macpherson M.A., delivered a lecture in Dunnet's Hall on Wednesday evening last on " Evenings in the House of Commons." Mr J. F. Herbert pre* sided. Rough weather and the short notice given accounted for the small audience, but those who assembled expressed themselves as highly delighted with the sketches drawn by the rev. gentleman of great Parliamentary debates and debaters. A hearty vote of thanks was accorded to the lecturer at the conclusion of the address. Farming. — We are again experiencing the boisterous and wintry weather to which we are generally treated in the month of October, but to the farmers this signifies little, as I may say that all the crop is now sown, while some of the early sown paddocks of oats are already looking green and remarkably healthy. Nearly all the grain sown this season has been got in in splendid order, and this should go far to ensure good returns in the harvest time. A large area of country is of course under oats, but the runholders have now almost secured a monopoly in the oatgrowing line through the cropping system, which proves a very remunerative spec to the landowners, who receive their fourth of the produce in a form almost equal to dry cash, whilst the croppers toil night and day almost behind their treble-furrow ploughs, or go reaping in the harvest time by the light of the moon and stars, and yet do not appear to me makiog a "pile"; at least if they are they are very careful to make the public oelieve otherwise, and the one continual cry is poverty !

Well, with oats down to next to nothing and heavy railage to market to pay, plus commission', storage, &c.< I think very few will make a for1 tufle" todeir the cropping system. A cry is being raiked fx>r enfeapfi* labour, and wages are being brought d6\v;n to' ap*i?tty low level. It is pro- , bable that. the ruling wages per hour in the har- ' vest aritf threshing time will to lover than they hav6\ver bW beforehand it is to Bib faffed that the good ol# mi's 6i is, and even 10d per" Isoflr are gone for evei I',1 ', i# at least ■until our new Far' liament have wiped aw^ itto depression, which may mean rriUoli about the s4fitt>' tMpg. Whilst on the subject, I omitted to mention ihat the squally state of the weather has done but smhli damage among the flockß, for most of the I farmers assure me that the percentage of lambs 1 this season is ahead of any previous year. On the funs and higher country I have reason to believe that things are otherwise. 1 A Loftfsicf SttilN.---Notwlthitfinding the dullness of the' tftueß dhv! the apparent scarcity of money, several have hdeif eitteted the " holy bonds pi matrimony." Others ferte evmfiea a desire fo follow thfeir example,- but apparently ' their wooing has been in vain. A good story, is going I;he rounds abb'ui! an example of tl# latter kind who occupies an' humble position in life and is unknown to fame. Probably think-, ing that a1"a 1 " faint heart never won a'falf lady," he placed his affections 6n one of the fair sex, immeasurably aftbv© himself in social status ; in fact it might hav'6 b*«n supposed that a gulf existed between him and thS ob 1 Sect Of his affections as great as that which is supp'CSAd- to exist between Lazarus and the rich man thSt was. Nothing daunted by this he made a declaration of love in black and white, but unfortunately for the wxiter the honoured fair one did not condescend to rejrly, and the loving epistle has, besides, been freely circulated among the community, and it is probable iait it will find a place in the museum that in future a#'e£ wrfl be erected in Kelso, where it wjll be looked upon afl a marvel of caligraphy and composition.