In Conclusion. 209 



lot it was to earn a livelihood by the labour of their 

 hands were alike indifferently housed, and meagrely fed 

 at all times. Before the progress of agricultural im- 

 provement had so far mended matters, they also suffered 

 severely from un sanatory natural conditions, such as the 

 abounding marsh vapours that rose from stagnant un- 

 drained swamps, and crept about many of their 

 habitations. Ague was a common complaint in 

 many parts of Scotland during a considerable portion 

 of the past century; indeed, it was so common in some 

 districts among the peasantry, in spring and autumn 

 particularly, that farmers occasionally found it difficult 

 to get through the ordinary operations of the season for 

 want of labourers. And when a special piece of work 

 had to be executed it was not unusual, we are told, "to 

 order six labourers instead of four, from the probability 

 that some of them, before the work could be finished, 

 would be rendered unfit for labour by an attack of this 

 disorder. Indeed, in several parishes," it is added, 

 " the inhabitants, with very few exceptions, had an 

 annual attack." And when Sir John Sinclair wrote 

 one of his later papers early in the present century, he 

 deemed the fact that ague had become less common, and 

 had been entirely banished from a number of districts, 

 " so highly honourable to agriculture," that he says he 

 could not mention it without " a high degree of pride 

 and pleasure." Malignant fevers too ravaged country 

 localities now and again, with a severity unknown to 

 the living generation, elder or younger, at times almost 

 literally decimating the population of a parish. And 

 of course small-pox, when it came, had its way un- 

 checked; killing not a few, leaving its indelible impress 

 on many a countenance, and often producing blindness, 

 where the attack was not fatal. 



Touching the religious and moral aspects of the ques- 

 tion, it were perhaps easier than it is desirable, or quite 

 wise, to make sweeping statements on the one side or 

 the other. Where the sense of religions obligation was 

 15 



