AT THE DUNEDIN HIGH SCHOOL FROM THE BACK BLOCKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2263, 15 July 1897, Page 56

AT THE DUNEDIN HIGH SCHOOL FROM THE BACK BLOCKS.

Letter the Ninth.

Dear Mother, — I have found it rather dull since you went home. The days are too short to do much after school, and I find time hang on my hands. I shall be glad when the rifle shooting begins again. The mornings are too dark to get down to the butts before school. I think everybody feels a little flat after the Jubilee joys, and I think it is a case of " up like a rocket and down like a stick." At any rate I feel as stale as a stick. Ib is a pity you did not stay a little longer, as there was a good fire the next week up the North-E«st Valley, but I could not get to it, and had to be satisfied with the glare and the firebell. We have had a football match, and it was good fun for us looking on and barracking for .our fellows. Football is very much like hard work, but I am getting to like it better now that there is nothing else to do in the way of, sport. You told me that that young brother of mine had been snaring hares lately. Tell him that he must learn to carry a gun and kill his game like a proper sportsman, and not like an old poacher. Strange that there are so few harfs in Otago. Perhaps the smell of the rabbits is too much for them. Tell dad that I made a mistake in my last letter about the big bullock at the show. I said that he told mo ib would go 8001b, bub I should have said 18001b. I have not heard what ib weighed when ib was killed, but I heard after dad left that ib would go nearly 20001b. So you did not get any coins in your lump of the big cheese P — came here. I believe all the money was in a bunch, and the man who cut up the cheese knew where the bunch was. I hope you don'c expect to win a prize in the Kindergarten Arb Union. There were 20,000 tickels sold and 50 pt.'zes. Tne drawing wai held last week, but I do not see the number of my ticket among the winners. But, as dad said, somebody must win, and why should not it be me ? I should like a bicycle very much at home, bub it would nob be much use to me to go up and down the hill between this place and the town. A new tramway line has been .laid of, and ib runs through the rectory grounds. It will be handy for me if you let me have enough pocket money to run tram ticket*. Won't it be a pity to wear out my boots walking alongside a tram line ? By the way, mother, if I am to keep on at football I must have another pair of strong boots. I can't play without nails, the ground is so slippery. I saw a Timaru paper after you left which gave an account of the doings at our township on Jubilee Day. What a pity you missed such grand fun by coming to Duuedin! I saw that the mounted bobby rode at the head of the procession, and after the oak was planted everybody had a good tuck out at the sports ground. There was a bonfire, too, and lots of fireworks and a concert in the evening, with a good aupper thrown in. I like a good feed after all the fan is over — it seems to make such a nice wind-up to the day. That's one thing we forgot here on that day. We went to bed without a special spread after walking about all the eyening looking at the fireworks, &c. I forgot, though, that all the pie-shops were rushed that day and cleared out; of everything worth eating. Those shopkeepers will have a bigger supply ready for next jubilee, I 'know. . It is bedtime now, dear mum, so I must stop and Siy good-night. — From your High School Boy.