THE ROYAL COMMISSION AND HIGHLAND CROFTERS. 145 



by post, in registered letters, in terms of the Citation Act, 

 which came into force on the first of January last. The 

 letters were, however, all refused, except three, one of these 

 being for Peter MacKinnon, -postmaster in the Glen, who 

 was, of course, obliged to receive the one addressed to 

 himself, into the Post Office, in Ills official capacity. How 

 the matter ended will have been seen in our Introduction. 



THE ROYAL COMMISSION AND THE HIGHLAND CROFTERS. 



A Royal Commission to inquire into the condition of the 

 Highland crofters has just been granted by the Govern- 

 ment, composed as follows : Lord Napier and Ettrick, 

 Chairman ; Sir Kenneth S. Mackenzie of Gairloch, Bart. ; 

 Donald Cameron of Lochiel, M.P. ; Charles Fraser-Mac- 

 kintosh of Drummond, M.P. ; Alexander Nicolson, LL.D., 

 Sheriff-Substitute of Kirkcudbright ; and Donald Mac- 

 Kinnon, Professor of Celtic Languages and Literature in 

 the University of Edinburgh ; with Malcolm MacNeill, 

 Colonsay, as Secretary to the Commission. A short account 

 of the way in which this concession lias been secured 

 may be advantageously placed on record. It was, for the 

 first time, proposed, by the writer of these pages, when, on 

 the i?th of October, 1877, he asked Mr. Charles Fraser- 

 Mackintosh, M.P., while addressing his constituents in the 

 Music Hall, Inverness, the following question, amid the 

 general laughter of the audience : 



Keeping in view that the Government has graciously considered 

 the reputed scarcity of crabs and lobsters, and of herrings and gar vies, 

 on our Highland coasts, of sufficient importance to justify them in grant- 

 ing two separate Royal Commissions of Inquiry will you, in your 

 place in Parliament, next session, move that a similar Commission be 

 granted to inquire into the present impoverished and wretched condition 



