104 Transactions. 



estimates by four we find the average population for 30 years is 

 400. Our deaths from 18G1 to 1891, both included, are 183. 

 Divide by the number of years 31, and you have 6 deaths per 

 annum to 400 population, which gives us — death rate, 15 per 

 1000. By the same mode^ — marriage rate, 6 per 1000 ; 

 birth rate, 27 per 1000. This birth rate is less than 

 that for the whole of Scotland taken for the same period 

 — namely, 27 against 33. The marriage rate is slightly 

 less, and the death rate is considerably less. In the 31 years over 

 which I have gone the death rate for Scotland is nearly 21 per 

 IQOO, while that of Tynron is 15 per 1000. When we consider 

 that many of our young men and women emigrate to the towns, 

 leaving the older people remaining, our health record stands out 

 well. 



As I have already read a paper on folk-lore, I shall mention 

 only one curious custom. A woman about 30 or 40 years ago 

 caused her children to wash their feet every Saturday evening. 

 As soon as the ablutions were performed, a live peat or coal was 

 thrown into the tub, the person doing so walking three times 

 around it. This was meant to prevent death. On 

 Thursday, after the terrible snowstorm of 6th February, a 

 shepherd told me he could have predicted a change, because on 

 Tuesday evening Hurlbausie was far too near the moon. This 

 strange word was old people's name for the planet Jupiter. 



Art has decidedly improved. We have two large memorial 

 windows in the Parish Church, one of them as fine as any 

 window of the kind in the county. In sewed samplers you have 

 Pharoah's daughter rescuing the baby Moses, and others of that 

 sort. On the mantelpieces are crockery hens sitting on delf 

 baskets, brooding over crockery eggs. But cabinet photos are 

 superseding the high-coloured prints of the happy pair courting 

 or going to church to be kirked. Bed carts, red petticoats, red 

 cravats, red calico napkins still prevail, but the young women 

 coming back for holiday from domestic service in towns are 

 toning down the enthusiasm for primary colours. The rack 

 above the dresser with the dishes, knives, forks, and spoons is 

 sometimes a picture of itself. The stone floor of the kitchen and 

 the threshold are made gay with curious scroll patterns, white or 

 red, by rubbing with caumstone. The taste for garden and potted 

 flowers has increased, and at Yule Christmas trees are in bloom 

 with us. Concertinas and melodeons have multiplied. Queer 



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