DECEMBER 225 



Among all the variety of uniforms of the British 

 infantry, none has undergone so little change in the 

 last hundred and fifty years as that of the Highland 

 regiments. That is well, for there is none other that 

 so admirably sets off a soldier-like figure, none that 

 stirs so much enthusiasm among the spectators at a 

 field-day. So fully has this been recognised that a 

 society has recently been formed to protest against and 

 endeavour to remedy what is deemed the unmerited 

 neglect of Lowland Scottish regiments, whereof the 

 records certainly are no whit inferior in lustre to those 

 of the Highland corps. It is complained that the 

 Lowland regiments are always kept in the background ; 

 that Edinburgh, though a Lowland city, is invariably 

 garrisoned by a Highland regiment, and that facilities 

 for recruiting in Edinburgh and Glasgow are accorded 

 to Highland regiments and refused to Lowland regi- 

 ments. Much of this is unfortunately true; but the 

 real reason for it exists in the greater popularity of the 

 Highland uniform. No amount of protest or persua- 

 sion will prevail to make the general public take the 

 same interest in a trousered regiment as in a kilted 

 one. Might not the surest remedy be to put the 

 Lowland regiments also into kilts ? Purists will object 

 that Lowlanders have no business to don the philabeg ; 

 but, for that matter, neither have they any business to 

 wear tartan trews, which all the Lowland regiments do 

 at the present time, besides being furnished with kilted 

 pipers. 1 Then all Scottish infantry would be on equal 



1 See report of the meeting of the Association of Lowland Scots 

 held in Edinburgh on 25th November 1915. 

 P 



