the humbler Highland classes by tyrannically turning a charitable fund into a screw for oppressing the poor. We deny not that relief was reached to many cases of desperate destitution, so that life was still preserved; but the appearance of the working gangs showed how fearfully deficient had been their penal stint of food! Instances fell within our own knowledge of labourers who had dropped fainting on the road, from absolute inanition. The distribution of meal, too, was most faulty. It was given out from the Board's stores, not weekly, as the exigency of the poor required, but fortnightly, so as to consult the ease of officials; the consequence was, that the first week was one of ravenousness, the second one of famine! As for any accurate information regarding the true condition of the destitute, it was out of the question on the part of the Board's officials; for they never entered the dwellings of the poor, where alone their real necessities could be tested. On crossing the threshold of scores of those smoky shelters of the indigent, we witnessed unmistakeable signs of scarcity. The gaunt forms of the care-worn elders of the family stood out in painful sharpness of outline; but the checked growth, and feeble step of half-fed children touched us still more sensibly; for we beheld in these sad years of destitution the grievous germ of a stunted generation-men unfit for toil, and women sunk below the weakness of their sex!

Another determination of the Board was to withhold relief from all applicants who had a vestige of property. A family might be without an ounce of meal, but still possessing a cow. Instead of affording a modified measure of relief which, with the adjunct of milk would have served to carry the poverty-stricken through their difficulties-the cow must be sold, and the price turned into provisions, before the bounty of the Board could be administered to the hungry solicitants. This course of proceeding worked effectually to pauperize the people; and as we remarked in a former article, the Board mischievously confounded their noble function as administrators of a philanthropic fund, with the stern duty of poor law guardians, who have to adjust relief by an inflexible rule which admits of no liberal discretion. Once entangled in this iron net, it was impossible for the Board to retain any Christian freedom of action; and therefore all their arrangements were characterised by cruel contempt for the poor. We affirm that the public should place no reliance on the published reports of the

Edinburgh Section. Their secretary, Mr Skene, is a verbose mystifier, utterly uninfluenced by sound, luminous, liberal principles-concealing what the public most need the knowledge of, under a technical tissue of confused details. What the subscribers to this enormous fund are entitled peremptorily to demand, is a balance sheet clearly disclosing the plain items of an expenditure amounting to £170,000. Surely there must be a banker's book; and we take it to be equally certain that there exists a cash book in the Treasurer's department. Why should three years of profuse payments have been suffered to glide by, without laying before the public an honest, intelligible account of the total monies which were drawn out of bank in order to pass through the hands of the Board's officials? Instead of some such satisfactory documents as we have described, and which (if the Committee were in earnest) could be furnished in any well-employed week; we have a limping apology at the fag end of every report, casting implied censure on tardy accountants, and purblind auditors. We may be wrong; but our surmise is strong that we shall never see any accounts, until after the last shilling has been paid away. Then we shall know what we shall know, according to the wise old doggerel :

When money is both gone and spent,

Then learning is most excellent.

It appears from one of the few plain particulars stated in the latest report, that "the net balance at present at the credit of the Treasurer, is £38,000." May it be permitted us to enquire what the Board intend to do with this residue of an Empire's bounty? Can the starvation system be carried out, maugre the retirement of the renowned "bare subsistence" Eliott? Has Sir Charles Trevelyan any other half-pay Captain pacing the purlieus of the Treasury, who may have his pockets well filled by keeping empty the bellies of the poor? Until these latter questions are resolved, it is useless to cherish any expectation of real relief being rendered to the destitute in the Highlands and Islands. Judging from an obscure intimation of the report just quoted, it would appear that the bulk of the balance in hand is to be dedicated to the relief of distressed proprietors, instead of their destitute dependants. "Co-operative agreements" find favour with Mr Skene and his Committee puppets, whose wires he slily and cleverly handles. The rationale of these co-operative schemes is as follows:

must.

Duke, or Lord, or Laird, desirous of sharing philanthropic pelf, solicits a slice from off the Committee's cut loaf. His people are starving; he cannot feed them; and, therefore, the Relief Board But no-that won't do, for how is the proprietor to finger the committee's cash? Hum! we have it. We Duke, or Lord, or Laird, will, upon second thoughts, undertake to feed the starving peasantry, if you-Destitution relief folks-will advance us money to make roads, which will signally enhance the value of our estates! Agreed-cries the complaisant Skene; and in a twinkling the Board transfer the very function they were called into existence for, to noble and gentle road-makers; who immediately bargain with a contractor, who makes the most he can of his welcome job! Our clear impression is that all these co-operative agreements are dishonest departures from the plain principle which the Board was constituted to carry out. Every farthing of the money subscribed, should have been directly dispensed to the destitute, by the agency of the Board; instead of golden showers being dropped on favourite Highland potentates, many of whose distressed dependants remained utterly unrelieved. But as we are furnished with an excellent opportunity of probing these matters to the quick, in connection with the divulged details bearing upon certain Ross-shire roads; we will adjourn the further part of this discussion to a sederunt in Tulloch's and Dundonnell's road-making districts.

PART V.

HIGHLAND ROAD-MAKING.

THE ROSS-SHIRE ROADS.

We find ourselves somewhat misled by this heading to a report in the Courier of certain proceedings at Dingwall; for, on diving into the discussons that took place, we think the fitting title should be,"No Roads in Ross-shire," the votes of the majority of the meeting appearing to us to run in favour of non-communication. We are really astonished that gentlemen of sense and education, and who have a large stake in the furtherance of local

"He

improvements, should adopt the course so unwisely proposed by Mr Davidson of Tulloch, and other Highland proprietors. When a road, in an almost impervious district, is suggested by a publicspirited person (which we believe Dundonnell to be), the wants and interests of the poorer part of the population are wholly blinked the necessities of a large, desolate neighbourhood are overlooked-and a proprietor hurries off (with or without a fee) to an Edinburgh advocate to get an opinion, by which he might contrive to overset a resolution favourable to what is called the Dundonnell or Little Lochbroom road! What we understand Dundonnell to supplicate for, is a district-authorization to make an eminently-required road; and having obtained permission at a general meeting, another general meeting is specially summoned to quash the former proceedings, on no other ground that we can possibly perceive, but that Mr Davidson of Tulloch is "disinclined to allow a line of road to pass to his great detriment," the nature of the said detriment being entirely unexplained. Dundonnell's plea is a manly and generous one, and should be placed in juxtaposition with Tulloch's case of unexpounded "detriment." (Dundonnell) was ready to make the road; he had the money in his pocket; he had offered to pay the surface damage of the land required from Mr Davidson; he wanted to open the district; all he asked was the power to do so; and he did not ask a penny to be refunded till the district was in a position to do so." Now, we are as impartial on this subjeet, as if we were writing about a projected road in California; and truth constrains us to say, that the vote which frustrated Dundonnell's good intentions, seems to us to be the product of selfishness and silliness. We are sorry to see the name of our good-natured acquaintance Applecross, and of our quondam friend Lochalsh, among the non-contents. Just as we were coaxing them to establish markets, they aid in rescinding resolutions for roads—thus vexatiously baffling us on the very eve of publication! But we must honestly confess that we have a very poor opinion of proxies in such matters. Let gentlemen attend meetings and hear what can be fairly alleged on both sides of a subject, and then vote according to their conscientious convictions; but to overthrow the decisions of one meeting, by of proxies transmitted to interested parties at another meeting, is, to say the least, a very questionable proceeding. As there seems to be a very slender amount of public opinion in the Highlands,

means

we are afraid that there is also a scanty supply of public spirit. What sort of patriotic feeling can throb in the bosom of a laird who thinks more of the petty "detriment" to his private interests, than of the accomodation which might be afforded to tens of thousands? We know nothing of Mr Davidson except as he exhibits himself at this Dingwall meeting; and we must own that he does not make out a sufficiently strong domestic case, to justify his obstruction of an undoubted public benefit.

ROSS-SHIRE ROAD-MAKING.-TULLOCH, DUNDONELL, AND THE HIGHLAND DESTITUTION RELIEF BOARD.

We make no apology for asking our readers to accompany us into a very untravelled Highland district, with the view of conducing to its more improved inter-communication by making known its peculiar wants. We attach immense importance to judicious road-making, which is the pioneering part of civilization; and without which the true capabilities of many a profitable region might remain disregarded for ages and generations. First, roads; next, markets; and then a social start in any opened district, will soon exhibit the promise of prosperity. It is, however, an undoubted fact, that the best public roads are those which owe their origin to public power, totally dissociated from mere local interests. The great element of excellence in a wisely planned road is its directness; not only to save the time of travellers, but to save the continual cost of proper maintenance. Every perch unnecesssarily added to a road, entails a permanent expense on parties who must pay a compulsory contribution towards keeping highways in needful order; and, therefore, having decided on the termini of any projected road, the next consideration is to make it the shortest line between the given points, to the stern exclusion of all interested suggestions which would lead to covenient curvatures, and pleasant deviations. Our belief is strong that General Wade and his military co-adjutors were more unexceptionable road-makers than all the Lairds that have ever laid their heads together to devise paths of unrighteousness in the Highlands. The reason lies pretty much on the surface. The roads schemed and constructed by directions of the Government, had great public objects connected with them; whereas roads canvassed and intrigued for by