Thirty rush to sign up for manly and athletic game
Last updated 21:50, Wednesday, 04 June 2008
A movement has been for some time on foot to re-establish a Cricket Club here.The tweed trade of the Border district is still in a rather flagging condition.Something simply must be done to combat this pest in Langholm. The cross was removed about the year 1840 to make room for Sir Pulteney Malcolm’s statue.
FORMATION of a Cricket Club
It has met with marked success; the members already amount to nearly 30, and there is every prospect that this manly and athletic game will be carried on with great spirit.
The Duke of Buccleuch with his wonted kindness has given the club permission to play on the beautiful lawn in front of his Border seat.
We heartily wish the club every success, and have no doubt but they will one day occupy a very fair status in the cricketing world.
SOUTH OF SCOTLAND
A few of the manufacturers have still all their looms running, but the majority of them could do with considerably more work.
The season for winter goods will be short, and makers will be in a somewhat waiting condition until confirmations for next spring goods come to hand, which will not be for some weeks yet.
Wools have hardened in price during the last few weeks, which has had the effect of steadying matters a little, and it is believed that these values will remain as they are just now for some time to come, so that merchants cannot expect any further reductions than what they have already obtained.
Some spinners are keeping their places full running, but others are not so well off.
Dyers are still fairly busy.
The hosiery manufacturers are mostly well employed
MIDGES
Golfers, bowlers, cricketers, fishers, gardeners, and those out for an evening stroll are all affected and all appear to be of the opinion that the Langholm midges this year are particularly vicious.
We agree, but we are not quite sure as to what should be done in an effort to exterminate the midges.
And Langholm is not the only sufferer.
The midge is seriously affecting the tourist trade up north.
We have heard that there is an outsize specimen up Oban way and in that and other districts people simply dare not venture out at nights if they don’t want to be worried alive.
We seem to remember that Tom Johnstone, the high heid yin of the Tourist Board, had some “back-room” lads on the job but all that emanated from them was a special brand of anti-midge lotion.
No, we think something better than that should be done all over the country – something in the nature of what was done when the U.S.A. took over the building of the Panama Canal.
Thousands and thousands of workers there died through being bitten by mosquitoes and so measures were taken to destroy the larvae in the breeding places.
The midge, we are told, also breeds in pools and marshes, so let’s have something done each year in this manner.
For a start we would like to see a flight of helicopters dropping some lethal powder or spray on the midges at the Castleholm, Buccleuch Park, up Wauchope, down Esk – it doesn’t matter where one goes on a night, the midges are always about in hordes.
MERCAT CROSS
In olden days the Cross was the focus of all important events – proclamations, royal and otherwise were there made and at it all important meetings were held.
It stood immediately in front of the Town Hall in the Market Place but what was then known as The Cross.
About the year 1867 some improvements were being made to the street and the shaft of the Cross was discovered.
It had, evidently, been carefully buried for preservation, doubtless on the spot where it had originally stood, in front of which there was also a cruciform design in the pavement, for Langholm High Street was then cobble-paved.
It is a plain shaft of Whita set into a roughly hewn plinth of the same stone.
The shaft of the Cross was surmounted by a red granite stone of oval shape, into which had been roughly cut the “cross”.
It is a matter of great interest to the Langholmite, coincidental or otherwise that the old Mercat Cross and the statue to Sir Pulteney Malcolm both of which originally stood in the Market Place have again become ‘united’ so to speak and are now to be seen side by side only a few yards from where they were first erected.
