2 JULY 1910, Page 24

HOSPITALITY.

[TO TER EDITOR OP THE "srs0raros.'1 Loane in her article on the hospitality of the poor in last week's Spectator says that it is more rarely shown in country districts. Recently, while inspecting district nurses in the North of Scotland, I had to drive in a gale of wind and rain by open post-cart ten miles along the exposed Northern Coast, only to find on reaching the tiny post-office of the hamlet that the nurse had been called to a shepherd's wife four miles further up the glen. The last two miles led over moor and bog track to the shepherd's cottage. I reached the home as the young woman was nearing the birth of her child. Her first and only thought, however, in spite of her suffering, was to provide tea, apologising that she had nothing better than biscuits to offer with it. This her niece neatly served by her bedside. Reaching the village on my return journey, I found the postmistress had prepared a big fire to dry my things while the horse rested, and a perfect -feast of barley cakes and crowdie, a sort of cream cheese with caraway-seeds, her own making and baking. Could a traveller in the East have been shown more ready hospitality than I, a stranger, received in these two rural homes P—I am, Sir,