Fair in morning I was able to see a few town cases walking in the forenoon + examined boy for birching at the County Buildings.1 Jack2 rode to Old Broadmeadows for me to enquire for John Rutherford3 + he + Maud Logan4 dined here at night. Nancy5 was in bed with a cold + I did not feel able to appear. Snow showers in the afternoon.
1 The Editor is reasonably confident that this is the correct reading here. This is possible, if surprising, as the judicial penalty of birching adults and children was not abolished in Great Britain until 1948.
2 John ‘Jack’ Roberts junior (1876-1966) and Agnes Amelia ‘Nancy’ Roberts née Muir (1878-1948), Dr Muir’s second daughter.
3 John Rutherford, garden labourer, widow of Isabella Hogarth. He lived at Broadmeadows, Selkirk. He was 77. The 1901 Census locates him more precisely at Yarrow Road, Old Broadmeadows and living there with his daughter Betsy Rutherford, 57, described as “housekeeper”. He was recorded as born at Mordington, Berwickshire and Betsy as born at Melrose, Roxburghshire.
4 Maud Logan is so far unidentified.
5 Agnes Amelia ‘Nancy’ Roberts née Muir (1878-1948), Dr Muir’s second daughter.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/7, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1904]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 