The fact that Captain Ross Smith, the hero of the flight to Australia, is half a Scot need cause no surprise. There are few Australian families without a strain of Scots blood. This is especially the case in Victoria, which was greatly favoured by Scottish settlers in the sixties and seventies of last century. I know a man who can count no fewer than 85 relatives in a single valley in Australia. When the pioneers made a little headway in the old days they sent for their brothers and sisters and cousins, and made a little clan away from home.
The story of this particular family is that a Peebles man emigrated to New South Wales, where he married @ Scotswoman who was born on board a ship that was carrying her parents from Scotland to Australia. They had three sons, and T have seen a photograph of them in a group—Ross, Keith, and Colin. Captain Ross Smith is the Australian flight winner; Keith accompanied his brother on the air trip; and Colin died of wounds in France.
All three brothers received part of their education at Moffat in Scotland.
Tue Autor or "Grttespie."
The death is announced of the ey. J, Macdougall Hay, the minister of Elderslie. He was a rather famous Scots author, his novel of "Gillespie," a protest against the wish-washy Kirkyaird school having a great vogue. His second novel, " Barnacles," was in the same vein, but was scarcely so successful.
He had to work his way to the pulpit, and it is told of him that when ho was at the Divinity Hall he made up his mind to compete for a bursary, and had only three weeks in which to read for it. He rose at eight in the morning and worked till one o'clock. After lunch he worked till five. At six he started grinding again, and went on from then till the Highland train, which passed somewhere about three in the morning, sent him to bed. He was up again at eight in the morning for the same round of study, and, needless to say, he won the bursary.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.