January 22, 1904

As is generally the case in winter, there is trouble being had in the schools near town. One man complains of a lady teacher from this town keeping one of his children fastened in the water closet nearly the whole of a cold afternoon last week. While this is certainly not right, it must be admitted there is in nearly every country district two or three boys from city institutions or reformatories who are a curse to any school, and if the teacher used the “gad” in trying to preserve order he is arranged before some Justice-of-the-Peace and fined, and sooner than throwing the case into court and fighting it there, he pays the fine to get the case off his mind. A teacher cannot teach a school without first keeping order, and it does look like a travesty on education for the State of Delaware, or any other State to appropriate and pay the larger part of the money for the maintenance of the free schools of the State, and after a teacher in doing his duty for the maintenance of order corrects or whips some unruly pupil, arraign him before an officer, appointed by the State and fine him for doing the very thing that the State employs him to do. Isn’t it absurd to the looker on? Isn’t it a farce on education? Not so to the teacher. It is a matter of stern reality to him and his pocket book.

Mrs. Ida Fox, who dislocated her shoulder by falling on the ice the early part of last week, is improving.

It has developed that there are boys or lads, using an old granary on the wharf as a resort for card playing. They have been “caught in the act.” Rev. L. P. Corkran touched on this subject in his sermon on Sunday, and during his remarks he said that such resorts as that and other enticements to allure the young are “toboggan slides leading to hell.”

The cold and frozen weather has brought a swarm of buzzards into town, possibly for something to eat. They are in the yards and perched upon the roofs of houses and any where that they can find a morsel of something to pick up.

John Welch, Jr., son of J. B. Welch, the Milton druggist, left the parental home on Friday to seek his fortune amid strangers in the “City of Brotherly Love.” Mr. Welch is an expert in the making of overall and has been engaged with Messrs. Douglas & White at the Milton shirt factory for some time. Like all other young men he wants to see the world. We wish him success, have no doubt that at a future date he will come home and bring a little pullet with him.

“Spot,” the fox hunter of Broadkiln, “Nobe” went out last week and “got up a fox” and had a seven hours’ run. They did not want to den the fox, and called the dogs off.

The ladies of the “Evangelical Department” of the W.C.T.U. are holding a series of day meetings during the revival services at the day churches.

Schooner W. I. Simpson, loaded with coal and bound for Milton, is frozen up at New Castle. The coal is for W. W. Conwell & Co., and more particularly for the consumption of the people of Milton.

Speculation is rife regarding the probabilities for a good peach crop. It is presumed the cold weather will backen the buds, and prevent premature blooming.

S. J. Wilson & Son have received this week a large invoice of wagons, dearborns, etc.