10 KEPOKT ON THE DIETARIES 



greater thrift than the other rural labouring classes in Scot- 

 land. Good examples of the class occur in cases 49 and 50. 

 They are, of course, met with in those large sheep-tracts which 

 abound in the Highlands and pastoral districts of Scotland, 

 and may be regarded in point of dietary as considerably above 

 the average of the Scotch peasant, and as occupying a position 

 in that respect to which it would be very desirable to raise 

 the ordinary run of ploughmen throughout the country. The 

 other subdivision referred to (ploughmen) includes the great 

 mass of the Scottish peasantry or hinds. This class is numeri- 

 cally stronger than the other sub-division of Class I. (shepherds), 

 and Classes II. and IV. added together, and includes about 80 

 per cent, of the entire rural agricultural male labourers in Scot- 

 land. They are met with, under slightly varying phases of social 

 condition and habits, throughout all the Scotch counties where 

 the ploughshare is used, or arable land is found. We find them, 

 as might be expected of a class so widely spread, under various 

 systems of husbandry, and differing in many particulars as to 

 wages, modes of payment, and terms of engagement ; but through- 

 out all the counties we find that their dietary is very much the 

 same, differing only in minor points of detail, and almost univer- 

 sally composed of the staple of Old Scotland — oatmeal porridge 

 and milk, or at least of oatmeal prepared in various ways and milk. 

 With them the use of butcher meat, as an article of daily food, 

 is unknown, and, unless in cases such as are cited in Nos. 4, 15, 

 16, 20, 33, &c, where a pig is allowed to be kept, they and their 

 families seldom partake of animal food at all, unless in times of 

 sickness or upon rare occasions. 



Amongst this class the use of tea as a beverage is not so com- 

 mon, although rapidly creeping into daily use, as in the case of 

 shepherds, or even in that of Classes III. and IV. ; and, where it 

 is indulged in, it is restricted chiefly to the labourer's wife, or 

 used by the family upon Sundays ; and we find its consumption 

 is most general in Wigtownshire. (See Cases 53 and 55). 



Much has been done of late years to improve and ameliorate 

 the social condition and comfort of this class, and were the 

 ploughmen, of their own accord, to advance proportionately in 

 moral duties and in attention to sanitary measures for the com- 

 fort of their homes and families, their well-being as a class would 

 be greatly augmented, and an additional stimulus given to land- 

 lords and tenants to extend to them still further a helping hand. 

 Mere cry for larger wages, and combination against their masters, 

 will never raise the status of the peasantry. Treasonable requests 

 will never be refused by liberal and kindly-disposed masters, 

 such as the Scottish tenant farmers generally are ; and there 

 seemed little need for the coercion upon this point which was 

 recently attempted. The ploughmen must themselves prove their 



