542 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



hours to cross from Poolewe to Stornoway. The smack 

 North Britain, Captain Leslie, who is still remembered in 

 Stornoway, was on the service for eighteen years : and the 

 Lady Hood, called after Lord Seaforth's daughter, was one 

 of the last of the old sailers, before steam communication 

 between Stornoway and Ullapool was, at a heavy cost to 

 himself, established by Sir James Matheson ; the first of 

 the steamers being the Ondine. When the railway was 

 extended to Strome Ferry, the latter took the place of 

 Ullapool ; and the mainland termini at the present day 

 are Kyle of Lochalsh and Mallaig, the mail contract being 

 in the hands of Mr. David MacBrayne. 



The rest of the Long Island was served in the eighteenth 

 century by a packet, which sailed to Dunvegan once a fort- 

 night. By 1 827, the service had become bi-weekly ; and 

 daily communication with the mainland is now maintained. 

 It is a curious commentary on the fiscal arrangements 

 existing in the Long Island, as recently as seventy years 

 ago, that a tax, which was facetiously termed " road-money," 

 was in Harris at least applied to the support of the 

 packet ; to the payment of part of the schoolmaster's 

 salary ; to the payment of the salaries of a resident 

 surgeon, constables, and public shepherds ; and to meet the 

 assessed taxes on dogs levied on small tenants. " Road- 

 money " in the Long Island appears to have been a compre- 

 hensive impost, which covered a multitude of factorial sins. 

 Criminal procedure in Stornoway was curiously archaic 

 even in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. A case 

 of sheep-stealing was punished in 1788, by the culprit 

 being taken from the Tolbooth, having a rope round his 

 neck, and a placard placed on his breast, bearing the 

 words " sheep-stealing " in large characters. He was then 

 led through the streets of the town by the common 

 executioner, and received fifty lashes on his bare back, ten 

 at each of five appointed places.* Banishment from Lewis 



* In the case quoted, the five places were : " Point Street ; on the South 

 Shore opposite, or to the east of, the house of Mr. Kenneth Morison ; Goathill, 

 Bayhead, and Cromwell Street." 



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