THE FALLS OF FOYERS. 
163 
and have nothing of the squalor thereof.” Thus the Northern 
Chronicle of February 27, unmindful of the Irishman’s wise con- 
clusion that it is safer to prophesy after the event. Here is an 
account, by a resident in the district, of what has actually re- 
sulted “ The works do not employ hundreds of men in all, 
and of them not a sixth part are natives of the district, and there 
will be fewer still when the preliminary operations are complete, 
and only skilled labour is required. The remainder of the men 
now employed are the usual type of navvies, English, Scotch 
and Irish, who have descended on and taken possession of this 
hitherto peaceful spot, and after the manner of their kind, are 
working a little, fighting and drinking more, besieging the local 
inns for whisky, and driving away from what many of your 
readers know as one of the most charming hotels in Britain 
those very visitors whose prolonged residence is universally 
admitted to be of real benefit to the district.” * The “ rural 
amenities” of the Northern Chronicle seem curiously absent from 
this account. 
Another line of defence adopted by the promoters and sup- 
porters of the company is to maintain that the Falls will not be 
injured. True, there will be no water in them, but that “ is a 
mere detail.” Our readers will hardly believe that such a state- 
ment as this could be penned seriously, but here is the extract 
from a letter by a person named Common, speaking on behalf of 
the Company, published in the Scotsman, a paper which refused 
to publish the Duke of Westminster’s remonstrance : — “ The 
damage to the scenery by their operations will be nil, and if 
there is damage it must be put up with. Nothing would destroy 
the natural beauty of that glen, the fact of there being water in 
it or not is a mere detail ! ” 
Here is the report of the resident already quoted, a report 
which we can confirm from personal inspection, and which, 
indeed, is studiously moderate in tone. “ The beautiful beech 
trees fringing the loch are hacked away and rooted out to make 
room for tramway lines ; hideous trenches destined for huge steel 
pipes plough their way through bracken and underwood ; the 
very antechamber of the Falls is disfigured by great masses of 
stones and rubbish flung out by hundreds of tons from the great 
tunnel which is to carry off every drop of the water which has 
foamed, thundered for ages into the abyss below. Yes, this is 
the prospect before us. The Falls are to vanish for ever, to be 
utterly swallowed up in pipes of steel, and worst of all, the sur- 
rounding greenery is to be blackened and blighted by the same 
fatal fumes which (as a recent eye-witness assures us) have 
turned the verdant valley of Neuhausen into a scene of god- 
forsaken barrenness and desolation.” 
The Duke of Westminster tells us more about the “fumes,” 
Daily Chronicle, August 7. 
