44 Notes and Sketches. 



nor winding-sheet. I was one of four who carried the 

 corpse of a young woman a mile of way, and when we 

 came to the grave an honest poor man came and said 

 ' You must go and help to bury my son ; he has 

 lain dead these two days ; otherwise I shall be obliged 

 to bury him in my own yard.' Many . . . did 

 eat, but were neither satisfied nor nourished ; and 

 some of them said to me that they could mind nothing 

 but meat, and were nothing better by it, and that they 

 were utterly unconcerned about their souls, whether 

 they went to heaven or hell. The nearer and sorer 

 these plagues seized, the sadder were their effects, 

 that took away all natural and relative affections so 

 that husbands had no sympathy for their wives, nor 

 wives for their husbands : parents for their children, 

 nor children for their parents." " These and other 

 things" made the worthy man " doubt if ever any of 

 Adam's race were in a more deplorable condition ;" 

 but "the crowning plague of all" was 'that, though 

 many were cast down, few were humbled ; there was 

 " great murmuring, but little mourning " " the great 

 part turned more gospel-proof and judgment-proof." 



The picture given in part, applies to the south-west 

 of Scotland. It is singularly like that supplied by 

 several writers of the state of things at the same 

 period in some parts of the county of Aberdeen. 

 Concerning the district, of which Turriff forms the 

 centre, the misery of the people was very great 

 " One Thomson, wadsetter, of Hairmoss, driven from 

 his home by want, was found dead near the shore 

 with a piece of raw flesh in his mouth." Of sixteen 

 families that resided on the farm of Littertie, thirteen 

 were extinguished. On the estate of Greens, three 

 families (the proprietor's included) only, survived. A 

 number of farms, being entirely desolated, were con- 

 verted into a sheep walk by the Erroll family, to whom 

 they belonged. "The inhabitants of the parish in 

 general," it is added, " were diminished by death to 



