CHAPTEE XX. 



CEAFTSMEN ITINERANT CRAFTSMEN AND TRADERS 



COAL AND PEAT THE SMITH THE WRIGHT THE 



TAILOR THE PACKMAN THE HORNER JOCK YOUNG, 



AND TIB DOO. 



VARIOUS facts, stated in the preceding pages, serve to 

 show the comparatively backward condition, not only 

 of agriculture, but of the mechanical arts as well, during 

 the greater part of the eighteenth century. Other illus- 

 trations of a similar kind might be given. But in place 

 of dealing with particular details of that sort, it may 

 serve the end equally well to glance at the subject from 

 a different point of view. Few things can be clearer 

 than that the capability of readily forging iron, and 

 bringing it into use for the purposes of industrial life 

 within a community, is essential to real progress under 

 the conditions of modern civilisation. Without that, all 

 kinds of mechanism must remain comparatively rude, 

 and the results achieved thereby be correspondingly in- 

 considerable. ISTow, in the business of forging iron to 

 purpose, the aid of coal as a potent fuel lias been found 

 of the utmost consequence. And during a great part 

 of the eighteenth century very little coal, indeed, was 

 used in those districts of Scotland that were dependant 

 on other parts for a supply. We get an idea of the 

 quantity in an indirect way. At the Union in 1707, 

 the Scottish Commissioners opposed the exaction of a 

 duty on coal ; yet till far through the century a duty 

 of 3s. 8d. a ton continued to be levied on all coal 

 " carried coastwise " to any part of Britain. It was 



