local possessors of property, insensibly take an oblique character, and are frequently found traversing territories where private interests condescend to be helped by public bounty.

These remarks are drawn from us by considering closely and impartially the subject-matter of Mr Davidson of Tulloch's letter, which appeared in our last publication. Whilst we are most happy to afford him all due facilities for explanation, we feel ourselves bound to declare, that the controversy which he so cleverly handles, is entirely traceable to the non-observance of the just distinction which should always be taken between public and private roads. Great oppression may be perpetrated on all parties liable to highway assessment, if roads designed for private convenience, and partly constructed at private cost, are subsequently affiliated, if we may so phrase it, by public procedure, and incorporated with district roads. A case of this description constitutes the present casus belli between Tulloch and Dundonell; and as we are lovers of peace, we propose making way for accommodation by proving both combatants to be in error. To achieve our purpose, it is essential that the question should be fairly and impartially stated, so as to render it thoroughly intelligible to our readers; and we must premise a few topographical details which it is requisite to place before the mind's eye; or, if before the physical eye, inspecting Johnstone's largest and latest map of Ross-shire—better still.

Between the narrow inlet of Lochbroom and the curved margin of Loch Greinard, there lies a tract of country which, as we are informed, has enjoyed but a slender share of modern improvements; and there seems to be a general consent that this lack of progress is ascribable to the want of roads running in south-western directions. So far back as 1844, the rude and almost impassable state of this region had engaged the attention of the proper authorities, who appointed a committee to inspect and report upon the best line of road which should open up this secluded district. Suggestions were thrown into official shape, recommending a road to be formed so as to connect the Little Strath of Lochbroom with the Ullapool road, and a plan, survey, and specification of this intended road, were ordered by the Trustees. Their orders do not, however, appear to have been carried into execution until November 1847, when a Mr Smith made a survey of a line, differing, though not widely, from that which the committee had submitted in their report to the Trustees. Here we must leave the proposition for a

public road-for it never seems to have assumed any legal character or efficiency; and the real matter we have to discuss is a most illegal state of things brought about by the improper interference of the Highland Destitution Relief Board. That most incompetent board had the folly to accept, not hints, but mandatory instructions from the Treasury as to the mode of allocating the immense funds which public benevolence had placed in their hands for a defined object, viz., the supply of food to the famishing Highland peasantry. With what refinement of inhumanity the vaunted labour test, emanating from Treasury Trevelyan, was enforced by Relief Inspector Eliott, has been sufficiently explained in former articles; but no opportunity presented itself until now of dilating on the measureless injustice, shameless jobbery, and sheer illegality which are branded upon the board's co-operative proceedings with proprietors. This so-styled co-operative system, stript of Mr Skene's mystifying verbiage, is neither more nor less than a monstrous malversation of a charitable fund, by giving largesses to noblemen and gentlemen, who may be truly said to have improved their estates by means of public subscriptions. The tricking pretext for this unworthy perversion of a noble aggregate of Christian bounty, was to associate the rich in the sweet task of relieving the destitute poor; but all was false and hollow. The real drift of these co-operative schemes was to give certain proprietors a command of capital, sneakingly abstracted from a munificent fund, meant wholly and solely for the direct relief of destitution. We of course cannot think very exaltedly of proprietors who sued for and received their shares of this unhallowed spoil; but although we deem them to have lacked dignity and disinterestedness, we cannot accuse them of dishonesty. That imputation would rest more fittingly upon those to whom a generous public confided the management of a sacred sum—vast in its amount-gracious in its principle-and delightful in its due distribution, but flagitiously diverted from its proper destination! If discretion did not guide our pen so as to prevent a lapse into provoking personalities, the theme of outraged humanity would instigate a fiery strain of censure against the culpable committeemen who have squandered on the seeming rich, a large portion of the monies subscribed for the relief of the destitute poor. Never again will it be possible to collect such a fund, if even a case of

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tenfold exigence should unhappily arise! The streams of unprecedented public bounty having flowed into a poisoned tank, the springs of charity will henceforth be shut up and sealed; for corrupt committees have polluted what benevolence had so purely poured forth.

And now for the special application of our accusatory strictures, to the abuse of the board's funds in co-operative road-making in Ross-shire. In September 1847, it comes clearly to light through official documents, that in consequence of communications from the Treasury, the Highland Relief Board authorised their Secretary to address a letter to Mr Davidson of Tulloch, as Convener of the County of Ross, requesting that gentleman to call the attention of the Road Trustees, to the subject of "certain roads in the parishes of Gairloch and Lochbroom," which Dr Mackenzie, Mr Bankes, Mr Mackenzie, Dundonell, and Mr Hay Mackenzie of Cromertie, were desirous of having constructed for the benefit of their respective estates. We must not mince matters by withholding what is really the sum of these suggestions. The relief so urgently required for the starving people dwindled into a matter of fourthrate importance; for, the exercise of Treasury meddling with a view to patronage; the craven compliance of the Relief Board; and the distribution of the latter's funds among importunate proprietors, were considerations of more magnitude than the immediate wants of hungry Highlanders. Of course all reprehensible schemes must be vestured in some subterfuge, and therefore the plea still put forth was relief of the poor, to justify the covert misapplication of resources contributed by the charitable. At the Michaelmas meeting of the county of 1847, Mr Davidson of Tulloch brought forward, and strenuously supported the road-making projects of the Edinburgh Section. Tulloch did not see, or perhaps did not wish to see, that this interference, proceeding from unauthorised and irresponsible parties, who had no more to do with the public roads of Ross-shire, than with the track of the Simplon, was in the highest degree improper and impertinent. But to do him justice, we believe he was caught by the fraudulent flourish of the board's wordy rigmarole. "It appeared to them that they (the dictated lines of road) were equally important for the county, and also for the purpose with which they were more immediately connected, viz., the relief of destitution. They would open up and render accessible a district, the population of which amounts to

about a fifth of that of the whole county; they would by the great improvements in the condition of the people effected, render any future destitution much less severe, and by affording employment to a great number of people in their formation, place the means of subsistence within the reach of the able-bodied poor, when the relief operations of the Board terminate.”

"Fine words, I wonder where you stole them!" is a verse of Swift's, pungently applicable to Mr Skene when he indulges in pseudo-prediction; but when he has to gratify pecuniary expectations, he ventures to be a little more explicit. Thus pleasingly writes the accomodating secretary to comfort the hearts of roadrequiring proprietors-" The board offer to contribute one-third of the expense in meal, although I doubt not, if money would be preferred (who questions it?), this would be no obstacle, provided the other two-thirds of the expense were forthcoming either from the county or the proprietors." Tulloch, who is evidently a gentleman of ability, education, and popular powers, seconded Skene's plausible propositions with might and main; and yet he had too much good sense and information not to drop misgivings as to the illegality of the course which he so zealously advocated. “I think it right," said he, " at once to state that, if the county meet the wishes of the promoters of this desirable object, the assessment is not a compulsory one, not one in which even a majority could bind a minority, but one that is entirely voluntary. But there are, however, some cases where the moral obligation is so strong as almost to supersede the strict letter of the law; and this is, I think, a case in point." Now, we have the misfortune to differ widely from the clever casuist of Tulloch Castle; for we conceive that a breach of the law was but queerly atoned for by the malversation of the relief board's funds; which, instead of being directly dispensed to the destitute, were to pass "through some certain strainers, well refin'd"-even the purses and pockets of some selected Ross-shire proprietors. Tulloch then went on to describe, with graphic correctness (for which we thank him, because it puts us in possession of the subject), the miserable state of the districts excluded from the benefit of roads, and whose proprietors, moreover, had been heavily assessed for the making and maintenance of roads in other parts of the country. But of all cases of hardship from the want of roads, Tulloch dwelt with most eloquent emphasis on the case of Dundonell, who, according to his

representation, had to "walk for many miles before he could get to a road from his own residence;" and whose position seems to forbid all notion of vehicular movement in that very primitive locality. Every fact and argument adduced by Tulloch went to demonstrate the undoubted necessity for public roads, planned upon public principles, and paid for by public assessment; but to assume for a moment that any offered allocation of foreign funds could justify any interference with the legally assigned duties and responsibilities of the county authorities, was perfectly preposter

ous.

The proposed roads were to be maintained by a paying posterity; whereas relief funds could only be wrested during a passing, malversating moment. A really useful road is a recognised part of our public institutions, and should never take its rise in a warmly urged private interest. From the report of the proceedings, we gather that Mr Macleod of Cadboll moved a negative to the proposition, but, as we think, upon wrong grounds-for he merely arrayed one private interest against another private interest, keeping out of view the only solid objection, viz., the utter illegality of the suggested course. Good Mr Macleod appears to consider Cadboll to be his county, and talks and acts accordingly. "For his own part he deemed it excessively hard to be taxed for behoof of others;" but we presume that Cadboll is accessible by means of roads for which others are assessed besides that respectable proprietor; and, consequently, he is somewhat indebted to distant parties for his improved facilities for locomotion.

The frustration of the scheme for incorporating the fugitive relief meeting with the permanent road trust of Ross-shire, led to a change of tactics, in which it would appear that the Convener of the county participated. We find that an intention of applying to Parliament to sanction certain roads was publicly notified, and then abandoned; but we also find in the notice special mention of an intended line of road "branching off from the proposed Garve and Ullapool road, at or near a place called Luibvaddug, onwards to, and by the west side of the Little Strath of Lochbroom to Mungusdale, and thence to the river of Little Gruinard." Now, this is, substantially, the line of road concerning which so much contention presently prevails, with this difference, that Mr Mackenzie of Dundonell had already been constructing, on his own account, a portion of this line, whereby he threw open communications between Gruinard and Dundonell. And here it is but bare justice