The Staffordshire and Potteries Examiner. — 1880-11-13 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

MURDER.  The following are notes of Mr. Francis Dickson, i an influential farmer, of Heslington, near York, and late honorary secretary of the York Chamber of ' Apiculture, as to the harvest which has just expired in Yorkshire, and the prospects of the agricultural interest in that part of the country :—Wheat was perhaps never more hopeful in the district up to the middle of June. Everything promised a really good harvest; but the hope then raised was soon to be blighted. After the rains in the later weeks in Juno • aces the wet month of July, on every day in which, excepting two, rain fell heavily, and which in fact was the wettest July known for many years past, all hope was obliterated of a good year for the farmers. Corn of every description on good farmed land got badly laid, and a great deal of it before it had got well into ear, and has brought with it a fifth bad successive Reason, which, it is to be Seared, will place hundreds of hardworking farmers on the very verge of ruin. The harvest commenced fairly, so far as the weather is concerned, and for three weeks all went on well. The time was made the best use of by the majority of farmers, but the dilliculty of reaping the core, from the necessity elite having to be cut nearly all one way, made harvesting slow work. Instead of being able to cat 10 or 12 acres a day under more favourable circumstances, but half that quantity could be accomplished, and the work was thus disagreeably tedious. A great deal had to be cut with the scythe, and was worth little alter it was got down. Had fine weather continued but a week or 10 days longer, the greater portion of the crops would have been secured; but rain came on, and it fell so fast and so long, that two-thirds of the crops which were then out got most seriously damaged. Samples, by sprouting and diecolouration, and this especially in the case of barley, were seriously depreciated in value, and the loss to the farmer is immense. The harvest of 1550, which has only just finished, and which occupied eight weeks from the beginning to the ending, has therefore been the most tedious, expensive, and wasteful in Mr. Dickson's experience of the past 35 years. The worst anticipations after the wet month of July, are now being realised by the work of thethreshing machine. The yieldand qua/ityof both wheat and barley are proving most disappointing. In not a few instances the yield is from 25 to 40 per • cent, under the average. The position of the agriculturist is at present most unenviable, and is being seriously felt. Deficient yield, inferiority of quality, and rents and Martinmas wages just due, have brought with them an almost universal wail amongst the agriculturists of Yorkshire, and altogether the district is in a position far worse than that of lad year.  11 At the Liverpool Police Court Benjamin Fowell, a middle-aged man, has been charged with sending threatening letters to Mrs. Fredric& Mary de Furneauz, of Gregson Terrace, Brunswick Road. ' It was stated that there had been some acquaintance between the prosecutrix and prisoner, and a long correspondence had passed between them, which terminated in two letters dated the 3rd and . Bth inst. In these the prisoner claimed a sum of about £5OO which he said was due to him, and he stated that if she did not pay it he would murder everybody in the house. -Miss de Furiteauz, a smartly dressed woman, was called, and said the prisoner had been at her house three or four times • and had created a disturbance. She was in terror of him. At one time she did owe him £lO, but that had been repaid long ago.—The prisoner was committed for trial at the assizes.