136 Notes and Sketches. 



stockings, had encouraged the country people by giving 

 them a little money or some linen at times, so " that 

 from five groats the pair he caused them work at 

 such a fynness that he hath given twenty shillings 

 sterling and upward for the pair." Mr. Pyper flourished 

 a little after the middle of the seventeenth century, and 

 about 1676 had as many as four hundred people spin- 

 ning and knitting for him. 



In a memorial to the Trustees for the Improvement 

 of Manufactures, of date 1728, the local importance of 

 the question is urged "as it will not be denyed, but 

 there is a greater quantity of coarse wool, commonly 

 called tarred wool, manufactured in the shire of Aber- 

 deen, and the manufactures thereof exported yearly 

 from the port of Aberdeen than from all Scotland 

 besides." There was also a considerable quantity of 

 linen cloth made and sold yearly; and thus "the 

 gentlemen of the county of Aberdeen, whose rents are 

 for the most part paid by the produce of their manu- 

 factures, have a very great concern that they should be 

 improven." 



Substantially the same style of domestic industry 

 continued throughout the eighteenth century, as is seen 

 from the statements of various of the Old Statistical 

 writers. The minister of Kincardine O'Neil says of 

 his parish, " 600 women are employed in spinning 

 and knitting of woollen stockings, at which they earn 

 from 2s. to 2s. 6d. a- week." Of the women of Strath- 

 don we are told that "they are in general capital 

 spinners, and they bring a great deal of money into the 

 parish." The statist for the parish of Rayne calculates 

 that the knitting of stockings at which all the women 

 and some of the boys, and old men even, of his parish 

 were employed yielded about 400 sterling ; and, he 

 says, if it were not for the results of the knitting " the 

 rents of the crofts could not be paid." *The minister of 

 Glenmuick says, with some emphasis, " while I accuse 

 the men of indolence, I should do great injustice to the 



