ATTEMPTED EVICTION OF FOUR HUNDRED SOULS. 143 



Scotland have never been known to violate its letter, except, perhaps, 

 where they had to deal with a statute passed in the interest of temper- 

 ance or to give the farmer a title to destroy the rabbits feeding upon his 

 crops. Then, as in that queer case from Kelso the other day, the 

 statute is apt to kick the beam in the interest of the public -house ; and 

 nobody needs to be told how the Court of Session drove more than the 

 proverbial coach-and-six through the Rabbits Bill, and made of no 

 account the law- that had been newly enacted at Westminster for the 

 protection of the farmer. All these things are duly noted by the 

 public, and the sentence passed on the crofters has this moral disadvan- 

 tage attaching to it that nobody thinks any the worse of the poor men 

 who are now in prison. They were loudly cheered as they left the 

 dock ; their families will be well seen to in spite of the Scotmans sneers 

 at their friends while they remain in custody ; and they will be certain to 

 get a warm welcome from the public when the day of liberation arrives. 

 It does not seem to be a desirable thing that the moral sense of the 

 community should be excited in favour of men who have been sent to 

 jail. Either that moral sense or the law with which it conflicts must be 

 defective. In the present case w do not believe that the feeling of the 

 community can be said to be at fault- 

 Referring to the treatment accorded to the Highlanders 

 generally, as described in the recently published " History 

 of the Highland Clearances," the same writer continues : 



It makes our blood run cold to read of the enormities that have 

 been perpetrated, which the law has ever been ready to screen, and the 

 Scotsman to vindicate with its pretentious philosophy and its affected 

 reverence for a law to which it has always rendered abject submission, 

 except when it was mulcted in damages for defaming Mr. Duncan 

 MacLaren. In that case it took leave to speak of the law in terms 

 which it would no doubt deem most flagitious were they employed by 

 the Glendale Crofters to-day. The same tone has pervaded the vast 

 majority of the press throughout the length and breadth of the land 

 North and South. 



ATTEMPTED EVICTION OF FOUR HUNDRED SOULS. 



The next step taken by the Trustees was a foolish attempt 

 to serve Notices of Eviction on the already too exasperated 

 people of Glendale. It was resolved early in April to 



