SCOTT CENTENARY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20497, 16 March 1932, Page 6

SCOTT CENTENARY.

SELKIRK PLANS. HONOUR FOR SIR J. ROBERTS. (FROM CUB OWN CO&BESPONDENT. I LONDON, February 2. At a public meeting in Selkirk on January 28th it was decided to hold the Scott centenary commemoration on the Saturday after the Common Hiding in June. The freedom of the burgh will be conferred on the Duke of Buccleucli; Major Maxwell Scott, of Abbotsford; Mr John Buchan, M.P.; and Sir John Roberts, New Zealand. This ceremony will take place outside 'on a platform in the market place close by the statue of Sir Walter Scott, who was a burgess of the royal burgh. Mr John Buchan will deliver an oration on the great novelist. There will be a procession of the members of the Ancient Incorporations and other public bodies. A luncheon will follow, theli a programme in the afternoon, and probably a Scott concert in the evening. "I ;. . Provost Ballantyne, explained that in view of the state of local industry it wfis agreed not to go further with the suggestion that bronze figures should be erected round the Scott monument. However, there was an alternative suggestion that a Scott bed might be endowed in Viewfield'Nursing H<ftne. The legal profession of the county, at their own expense, proposed to erect a tablet on the front of the Town Hall, wherein Sir Walter presided on the I Bench as Sheriff of Selkirk for a long period, It hoped that Sir John Roberts might'be able to come from New Zealand to receive the freedom, but if not his son would deputise.