208 'OLD q' 



ing the hearing it was proved beyond doubt that his 

 grace had gi*anted tacks (a power the Earl of Wemyss 

 contended he did not possess by the entail), partly 

 for a yearly rent, and partly for sums of money paid 

 down. The case went through the various Courts of 

 Appeal ; but the final result was singular, ' that both 

 sides might recover if they could.' In this way the 

 court found the late Duke's mode of granting leases 

 wrong. But whether the executors ' have to relief the 

 Earl of Wemyss or the tenants of the property in 

 dispute ' was reserved for further deliberation. This 

 is sufficient for my purpose — to prove how, in one 

 way, Queensberry forestalled the unearned increment. 

 Another procedure adopted by him was scarcely so 

 unique as that just referred to ; it was, indeed, but 

 a mere conventional method by which impecunious 

 noblemen and gentry ' raise the wind ' — by denuding 

 their estates of their timber. 



Queensberry did this with a vengeance, indeed, the 

 wholesale stripping of his lands of centuries of growth 

 was neither more nor less than greedy Vandahsm. 

 Burns, in his day, saw a part of this destruction done, 

 both at Drumlanrig and Neidpath, and bewailed it in 

 verse : 



' As on the banks o' wandering Nith 

 Ae snailing summer morn I strayed, 



