CHANGES IN THE PROPRIETARY. 493 



enjoying exclusive privileges,* but to entitle a person to 

 trade and manufacture within the burgh, he must become a 

 burgess. The fees of admission payable to the funds of the 

 town were 1 133. 4d. The public quay, which was built 

 by subscription, and was made over to the Town Council 

 in 1831, produced a rent of 14. t The town customs 

 yielded 3 35. od. per annum. These amounts formed the 

 whole revenue of the burgh ; and the expenditure for the 

 most urgent municipal and police purposes amounted to 

 15 173. 6d. The debt due to the burgh, consisting of 

 arrears, was 17 143. od., and the debt due by the burgh 

 was 8 33. 2d. From these small beginnings has the civic 

 importance of Stornoway grown to its present proportions. 



The magistrates exercised a civil jurisdiction in small 

 cases, chiefly actions of debt ; they did not, in practice, 

 exercise any criminal jurisdiction. During the ten years 

 ending 1834, the number of cases which came before them 

 was 104, or an average of a little over ten in each year ; a 

 fact which says a good deal for the commercial morality of 

 the burgh. All cases outside the jurisdiction of the magis- 

 { trates were dealt with by the Sheriff-Substitute for Lewis, 

 who resided in Stornoway. 



On 2nd March, 1825, the Island of Lewis, with the 



exception of the parish of Stornoway, was exposed for 



I judicial sale in Edinburgh, to pay the entailer's debts, 



: under an Act of Parliament passed during the reign of 



George III. The upset price was 137,384 I2s. 4d., 



j being the valuation of the property, but the sale realised 



160,000, the purchaser being Mr. Stewart-Mackenzie.^ 



'! Nineteen years later, the property finally passed out of the 



* In 1772, the crafts of Stornoway applied for, and received, grants of arms, 

 [sharing with Aberdeen the distinction of being one of the two Scottish burghs 

 ithat have the right to use trade emblems. 



t Knox (1786) states that a sum of 1,200 or 1,500 had been granted 

 ;some years before by the trustees in Edinburgh for building a quay, and for 

 ierecting fishermen's cottages, but that nothing worthy of the name of a quay 

 jhad been constructed. In 1816, a pier was built by public subscription, the 

 iproprietrix contributing 105, and the inhabitants of Stornoway 311, as well 

 jas gratuitous labour. In 1863, the " foreshore question " arose, out of which 

 the Harbour Trust Commission came into being. 

 ! + Report on Lewis by the Crofters Commission, p. LXIX. 



L L 



