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the horrors and atrocities-grievances-to which my attention was called, not by ONE discontented voice," as the Courier will have it, but by mourning multitudes-I have carefully examined-ascertained to be true; and where would be the use of " consulting local managers" on points already established, and which, moreover, they would consider as accusatorial allegations against themselves?

Therefore, notwithstanding the friendly counsel of the Courier, and the penal prospect of having my strictures stigmatised by the sage of the John O'Groat Journal, as a "wild and furious newspaper onslaught!" I must crave the liberty of doing my own. work after my own fashion. It is very easy for complacent editors, sitting snugly at their desks, to frame a programme of inquiry, which would be suitable for " our own reporter," but their suggestions are lost upon me. I never obtrude myself upon the hospitable halls of proprietors or their "local managers"—my business lies with the poor and the oppressed, and if I overcharge my statements of their case, I confess myself open to the censure of aggrieved proprietors, or their officials, who, it is to be hoped, will be more successful in their recriminatory scribbling than the Duke of Sutherland, and his factor Mr Gunn.-I am, Sir, your obedient servant, THOS. MULOCK.

Dunbeath, Caithness, Nov. 4. 1849.

P.S.-It having occurred to me that the public journals (including, I presume, the John O'Groat and Inverness Courier), had circulated a statement extolling the Duke of Sutherland's liberality in ordering a large number of deer to be stewed into soup for his needy dependants, I have inquired everywhere on my route, as to the distribution of the savoury bounty, and, as yet, without result. -Can some thankful soup recipient instruct me as to the locus in quo?

THE QUEEN'S RUMOURED VISIT TO SUTHERLAND-POETRY AND

PLAIN PROSE.

THE gentlemen of the London press who employ themselves in planning out royal movements, had, it seems, invented a marine summer excursion for our good Queen-including a peep at Gibral

D

tar, a survey of the Barbary Coast, and several other interesting items of a visionary voyage; but the London correspondent of the Inverness Courier has boldly undertaken to gossip down all these conjectural yachtings, by assuring us that her Majesty will limit herself to land-service " amid the Grampians;" with an extension of leave so as to reach the far-famed towers of Dunrobin Castle. From that magnificent mansion, the royal lady is to be greeted with the glories of Sutherland, which consist-but, no! we will not incur the risk of certain failure, by competing with the Aladdin style of our contemporary's dashing correspondent, who thus describes what the Queen is to gain by a "progress" through the territories of the "good Duke," as the bumper toast convivialists jollily designate him. "She will have the splendid palace; the elaborate and well-sheltered garden; the wild iron-bound coast, spurning the waves of the German. Ocean; the sweet wooded and sequestered dells; the foaming cataracts, and rapids teeming with the silver-laced salmon; the wide heaths peopled with the antlered monarchs of the waste; the well cultivated fields with their comfortable steadings; and, above and beyond all, a loyal, and peaceable, and high spirited race of peasantry, of whom almost every woman is comely, and every man handsome-all rejoicing under the sway of a good, kind, and considerate landlord. These are a few of the things which the Queen will see in Sutherlandshire!" There's a series of tableaux for you, touched off with artistic power and piquancy by a wordy limner, who outgoes the spirited sketchers of Punch, or the handy draughtsmen of the Illustrated News! It is painful to be obliged to dim the splendours which this eloquent magician has exacted from "the slave of the lamp," but austere verity compels us to declare, that if Queen Victoria takes his pledge for some of the fine things here set forth, her Majesty will be in some danger of disappointment. The splendid palace, Elysian gardens, spurned waves, silvery salmon, and antlered deer, we suppose, may be safely conceded; but as for all the rest-all that appertains to the peasantry rejoicing under their present sway, &c., &c., we must beg leave to dismiss the enumerated articles as having no existence save in the fruitful and eulogistic imagination of the Courier's correspondent. Indeed, we are forcibly reminded of a scene in Sheridan's Critic, where a sort of second-sighted interlocutor describes a gorgeous succession of marvels, as if passing actually before his eyes. Upon being pressed

by an inconvenient interrogator to point them out for the benefit of wonderers standing beside him, he replies very satisfactorily— "You cannot see them-for they're out of sight!"

We certainly bear in mind the Potemkin plan, by means of which the Empress of Russia was hoaxed into a belief of the prosperity of her Tartarian dominions, which we alluded to some time since; but highly as we estimate the energies of the great Gunn, and the greater Loch, we are clear that, except they can borrow the services of the Courier in substituting literary creations for living and breathing realities, the Queen will not discern the gratifying scenes pictured for her beforehand in the good shire of Sutherland. If, indeed, instead of devoting his royal zeal to the feeding of prize porkers, Prince Albert were to dedicate his whole mind to the management of sheep; we admit that Sutherland's noble straths would afford his Royal Highness ample scope for contemplating the grandeur of lonely shepherd life on the large scale organized by the late Marquis of Stafford! As the Queen has a decided taste for the picturesque, and sketches as well as she etches; we recommend her Majesty to try her hand in transferring to her album Kildonan, and Strathnaver landscapes, interspersed with the blackened ruins of burnt-down cottages, where dwelt in former days the "loyal, and peaceable, and high-spirited race of peasantry," who were driven from Sutherland, as the Jews were expelled from Spain, or the Huguenots from France! Friends sometimes do the work of enemies, by bolting in extravagant commendations, where a judicious, penitential silence is the one thing needful. So say we in noticing the encomiastic nonsense which is palmed upon the public with respect to the prosperous condition of Sutherland. We know it to be a complete fable. We have now before our eyes a letter just received from a trustworthy friend, residing within an easy walk of Dunrobin, and who is well acquainted with the whole mystery of Sutherland mismanagement. Very different are his statements, founded on local knowledge, from the rapturous rhapsody of the Courier's clever correspondent. "I have delayed writing from time to time, in the hope of being able to acquaint you with some improvement in the management of affairs in Sutherland; but I am sorry to say that things seem to be going on in the same old style—grinding the face of the poor more and more, and nothing doing for the amelioration of the condition of the poor. The Duke has very little of improvements going on this

year; and in consequence a great number of young men in the parishes of Clyne and Loth are perfectly idle, and a burden upon their parents; nor will the Duke let additional land, which would be rendered fruitful by numerous labourers. I do really believe, that if the Duke does not alter his system, and that speedily, he will lose that place of affection in the hearts of the poor, which they have cherished even under the hand of oppression."

If

It is plain that our Sutherland correspondent, and the Courier's London letter-writer, view matters under very antagonistic aspects. Not that we would impugn the veracity of the London writer, whose pleasant pictures evince so much of the couleur de rose. twenty "correspondents" were to visit Sutherland to-morrow, they would sing of the Duke's matters pretty nearly in the same choral strain of laudation: for instead of roughing it at humble inns; penetrating into the abodes of poverty; and hearkening to the proved wrongs of the wretched and the oppressed-the amateur enquirers would be the guests of factors or potent sheep-farmers, and hear nothing "from morn till dewy eve," but praises of the "good Duke;" anecdotes of Dunrobin dignity; and little episodes of Mr Loch's wonderful wisdom in depopulating whole districts of their naughty inhabitants, in order to make way for innocent sheep! Out flies the note-book; down drops the encomiastic pen or pencil; and jottings are made, which, at the proper season, mature into poetical paragraphs, designed to enlighten the rural readers of "Our London Correspondent!"

THE REJOICINGS IN SUTHERLANDSHIRE.

To the Editor of the Iuverness Advertiser.

SIR,-The ample details furnished by your intelligent reporter, under the above head, in your last publication, served, I think, among other good purposes, to show that there existed no grudging spirit on the part of the Advertiser towards the noble house of Sutherland. Had the recital of those festivities proceeded from the Court journalists of Dunrobin, they could scarcely have supplied a warmer-tinted narrative than shines along your candid columns. The groaning banquet-tables-the bumper toasts-the high-flown speeches, and the responsive acclamations of hilarious guests are described with a fidelity which assures us that good eating and potent drinking are excellent nourishers of loyal at

tachment. But I confess, Sir, I should have felt somewhat more gratified to learn that the same system pursued on the Duke of Sutherland's English estates, in celebration of his heir-apparent's majority, had been graciously extended to his northern possessions. In Staffordshire and Shropshire, vast largesses of substantial food and joy-inspiring ale were discreetly dispensed to his Grace's poorer dependants; whereas in Sutherland, bounty seems to have taken the shape of giving silver money to buy illumination candles! What the people appear to have had most provided for them were bonfires-popular manifestations of rejoicing, I freely admit-but in Sutherland not quite so appropriate as in other rural regions. Some weeks ago, I had occasion to refer to burnings of a very different description, and such as I trust will never be renewed ; but still, it strikes me that when the Sutherland skies were reddened with the blaze of so many rival bonfires, the flames caused by the conflagrated homes of other days, would flash fearfully on the memory of not a few of the Duke's well-wishers!

I am not inclined to attach over-importance to the effusions of after dinner orators, but an admission made by the chairman of the Dornoch convivialists in proposing the health of Mr Loch, seemed to me to possess some auspicious significancy,—particularly as Mr Dempster enjoys the pleasing privilege of interchanging billets with the Marchioness of Stafford. In allusion, no doubt, to Mr Loch's cruel clearance system, Mr Dempster is reported to have spoken as follows. "He was aware that the minds of some would recur to certain acts upon which differences of opinion might exist, and he was quite sure that Mr Loch himself, if he had to do over again all that he had done, would in the long period of his services in the county, find something which he could wish he had done better. All men were liable to mistakes, and Mr Loch would not be inclined to claim an exemption from the rule." To plain, old-fashioned people, who are frequently puzzled with the see-saw style of modern adepts in mystification, it would perhaps have been more intelligible if Mr Dempster had said, what I have ventured to say-namely, that the whole of the Sutherland Improvements, enforced and officially extolled by Mr Loch, were a barbaric blot on the House of Stafford,—a foul stain upon the annals of civilization and humanity! But when I call to mind that Mr Dempster is a friend and favourite of the noble family in question, I think his dim, twilight truthfulness may

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