+992. ou ihe coal duties in Scotland: * 304-1r 
-“ The principal disadvantage ander. which this parifh: 
labours, is the scarcity of fuel———-The few heritors, and’ 
the better sort of farmers, now burn coal. But it is of 
the greatest disadvantage to the parifh to want fuel, or 
Rot to get coal at an easy rate; for it costs generally 
2s. 2d. the barrel; and the farmers and cottagers spend’ 
all the summer, and part of the harvest, in procuring some 
bad turf.” [Mr James Urquhart, Fearn, Rofsthire,’ 
P- 297.) . 
“The condition of the people might be ameliorated con=- 
siderably, could they have coals duty free, [p. 298. ]——-so’ 
that, in one word, the only means whereby the condition: 
of the people could be ameliorated, next to better seasons,. 
would be, for the legislature to allow. coals duty free?” 
Ep. 301.}} 
“ But perhaps the greatest barrier against houfhold in- 
dustry and manufacture among us, is the scarcity of fuel 
im many parts of the country. A human being, pinched 
with cold, when confined within doors, is always an in: 
active being. The day light during winter, is spent by ma: 
ny of the women and children in gathering e/ding, as they 
call it ; that is, sticks, furze or broom, for fuel’; and the 
evening in warming their fhivering Jimbs before the scanty 
fire it produces. Could our legislators be conducted 
through this parifh in the winter months:; could the 
Lords and Commons, during the Christmas recefs, visit 
the cottages of the poor through these parts of the united’ 
Kingdoms, where nature hath refused coal, and their laws 
have more than doubled the price of it, this would be 
Shakespeare’s “ wholesome physic, ” and would, more tham 
any thing else, quicken their invention to find ways and’ 
means of supplying the place of the worst of laws.” [Mr 
John Graham, Kirkenner, Wigton county, p. 147.] 
These extracts might have been made more numerous 
if it had been judged proper ;, but the above are sufficient 
