LETTER TO THE EDITOR
& SHORT NEWS ITEM

The Old Boys’ Reunion
To the Editor of the Perth Courier.
SIR, — Years ago Perth was known as a fossil town that existed simply by reason of county officials, lawyers “and sich.” A certain Boniface of Carleton Place whose tongue was hung in the middle (he was Irish) once jeered at the writer, that “if you took money lending, money saving and gossip out of Perth there would be nothing left but the cow pastures known as the streets.”
The unwonted energy displayed years ago in efforts to secure the Toronto and Ottawa Railway, now the C.P.R., was delightfully satirized by the Herald, which went on to say (in effect) that success having perched on Perth’s banners, Perthites were now projecting a railway to the sun to get heat and power. Such a vast undertaking, the Herald observed, would require an army of men to carry it through. But Perth was equal to the occasion for had they not considered this, and laid out a branch line to the moon to get green cheese.
Lest the supply of this comestible should fail, with commendable energy and forethought several other branch lines were to be built into the Milky Way to get the necessary supply of lacteal fluid to keep up the supply of cheese. For all of which people will know that the then editor of the Herald was both clever and possessed of an abounding sense of humor. Had he lived till now he would have added to the foregoing gem, an allegation that the “understandings” of Perthites must grow, as they had now secured a boot and shoe factory.
With electric light, a water system, and a lot of manufacturing concerns, and the great and majestic Tay canal on whose waters may soon be seen the Kaiser Wilhelm, what else could follow but an “Old Boys’ Reunion?” The vim with which this is being pushed is indicative of stores of energy developed through heat and power derived from the sun, and joking apart, is worthy of great praise. If all the favors to be showered on Old Boys materialize, Perth will be advertised to the four corners of the world as not only an up-to-date town, but in the van of progress. More, will the visitors not escant upon the beauties of the classic Tay, which winds through the town like the letter “S”, whose long vistas painted in emerald hues by nature are lovely as the bowers of paradise to youth and beauty, for are they not the food of love? Then within easy hail are scores of lakes, almost unknown in the past, whose loveliness I leave to the pens of visitors with greater imagination and ability than mine to paint.
It makes me sigh when I think of the pickerel we used to catch at the junction of the north and south branches off the Long Bridge. Billy Likely knocked us all cold when he yanked in a whale of a pickerel that weighed nearly seventeen pounds. The fish was landed on the old McFarlane foundry wharf at the east end of the “Long Bridge.” Billy is to the fore yet, I believe, in Cleveland, Ohio, and can vouch that “that is not another fish story.” With this long, drawn out introduction comes an “alas,” for alas! I may find myself unable to take in the reunion. As a “veteran” of ’66 and ’70 I have a 100-acre lot, which has been located for me somewhere near Lake Abitibbi, which I wish to see with an eye to business. Cold storage is all the go, and it can be furnished up there at certain seasons cheap, so let all of your readers in want of that consideratum apply to the writer.
However, if I cannot attend I am willing to help give the reunion a boost, so would suggest that all the local benevolent societies make it a point to have special meetings when the show is on. They can thus meet not only as “old boys” but as brothers. All points of interest, such as the exact spot where was fought the fatal duel in which Robinson Lyons was killed and his grave; Otty Lake, which is being immortalized in verse by your local bard; the phosphate, plumbago and mica mines, and the many other places that the older residents may know of and recollect of historic interest, and what of old military relics?
Yours, etc. J.W.D. An “Old Boy.” Shelburne, April 25th, 1905.
[Ed. Note: – the above would seem to have been written by Maj. John W. Douglas.]

Murder Not Established.            “Found dead” was the verdict of the coroner’s inquest in connection with the finding of a body of an infant secreted under a sidewalk in Brockville. The evidence furnished no clue by which the affair could be cleared up. The medical testimony did not go far enough to establish the crime of murder, but there was no doubt whatever that the offense of concealment of birth had been committed. The fact was established that the child lived after birth, but there were no marks of violence on the body. It had died from neglect.