The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-01 00:00:00

oatmeal, is their food. It is true, there are small trouts,
or something like them, in some of the little rivers, which
continue in holes among the rocks,which are always full of
water when the stream has quite ceased for want of rain;
these might be a help to them in this starving season ;
but I have had so little notion in all my journeys that
they made those fish a part of their diet, that I never
once thought of them as such till this moment. It is
likely they cannot catch them for want of proper tackle,
but •I am sure they cannot be without them for want of
leisure. What may seem strange is, that they do not
introduce roots among them, (as potatoes, for the pur-
pose) ; but the land they occupy is so very little, they
think they cannot 'spare any part of it from their corn,
and the landlord's demand of rent in kind is another ob-
jection. You will perceive lam speaking only of the
poor people in the interior parts of the mountains ; for
near the coast, all around them, there are few confined to
such diminutive farms, and the most necessitous of all
may share, upon occasion, the benefit of various kinds of
shell-fish, only for seeking and fetching.
" Their cattle are much weakened by want of sufficient
food in the preceding winter, and this immoderate bleed-
ing reduces them to so low a plight that in the morning
they cannot rise from the ground, and several of the
inhabitants join together to help up each other's
cows, &c.

" In summer the people remove to the hills, and dwell
in much worse huts than those they leave below ; these
are near the spots of grazing, and are called -shealings,
scattered from one another as occasion requires. Every
one has his particular space of pasture, for which, if it
be not a part of his farm, he pays.
" When the grazing fails, the Highlanders return to
their former habitations, -and the cattle to pick up their
sustenance among the heath as before. At other tidies
the children share the milk with the calves, lambs, and
kids; for they milk the dams of them all, which keeps
their young so lean that when sold in the low-country
they are chiefly used, as they tell me, to make soups
withal; and when a side of one of these kinds hangs up
in our market of Inverness the least disagreeable sight
is the trasparency of the ribs.

" About the latter end of August, or the beginning of
September, the cattle are brought into good order by
their summer feed, and the beef is extremely sweet and
succulent, which, I suppose, iftwing, in good part, to
their being reduced to such poverty in the spring, and
made up again with new flesh. Now, the drovers col-.
lect their herds, and drive them to fairs and markets on
the borders of the Lowlands, and sometimes to the
north of England ; and in their passage they pay a cer-
tain tribute, proportionable to the number of cattle, to
the owner of the territory they pass through, which is in
lieu of all reckoning for grazing.
" But nothing is more 'deplorable than the state of
these people in time of winter. They are in that season
often confined to their glens by swollen rivers, snow, or
ice in the paths on the sides of the hills, which is accu-
mulated by drippings from the springs above, and so by
little and little, formed into knobs like a stick of sugar
candy, only the parts are not angular like those, but so
uneven and slippery that no foot can pass. They have
no diversions to amuse them, but sit brooding in the
smoke over the fire till their legs and thighs are scorched
to an extraordinary degree, and many have sore eyes,
and some are quite blind. This long continuance in the
smoke makes them almost as black as chimney-
sweepers ; and when the huts are not watertight, which
is often the case, the rain that comes through the roof
and mixes with the sootiness of the inside, where all the
sticks look like charcoal, falls in drops like ink."
There is a touch of the fastidious Englishman—nay,
of the Cockney—in this picture of the horrors of winter.
Much comfort has been enjoyed in a Highland bothy
even in the depth of a snow-fall or the severity of a
black-frost. The little township had its occasional days
of merriment and nights of festivity, when the scattered
groups were collected together from the different huts,
and rejoiced over the simple cheer of the glen, inter-
mixed with song and legend. The painting, however,
in its general features, is too true, and it still holds good
of a large portion of the crofters.
"Still, they tread the same rough way,
The present's still a cloudy day."
The poverty, the smoky huts, the want of cleanliness
and steady industry, and the suffering of the spring
season, in too many instances, yet remain. The intro-
ductionri?oruv being. so
increased
the
ehe potato e
amount offfecatvedailnaoblreealfoionidp,

easily produced, it discouraged` industry, and the popula-
tion multiplying still more rapidly, the general mass was
reduced to that state in which they depended solely on
potatoes for subsistence. The conversion of large tracts
of land into sheep-walks also contracted the demand for
labour and the means of support, so that, although above
sixty thousand persons, of the crofter and cotter claiies,
have emigrated from the Highlands since the period of
the American war, the population is still felt to be too

numerous. The remedy is—cultivate the waste lands,
drain, trench, and improve, and thus create both food and
labour. We have already made vast progress in render-
ing the land productive and' the hills valuable, but we
have been indifferent as to the condition-of the people.
Let the upper classes now bestir themselves, and make

what seems a great calamity in the rural calendar of the
north, a landmark from which we may date a new course
of advancement.

THE TICKET SY STEM. -
EXTENSIVE POBGERY.
At the Lewes petty session, on Saturday last, two
labouiers, named Howell and Johnstone, were charged
with having obtained a quantity of goods from Mr.
Payne, an outfitter at Lewes, by means of forged railway
tickets. The tickets were forgeries of those issued by
Mr. Ayres, the deputy contractor of the Keymer branch
of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway.
They were printed on little bits of paper, and were as
follows:—" Deliver to bearer the sum of tine shilling
in goods.—Signed F. Ayres. Payable to Benjamin
Flint only."
It appeared from the evidence for the prosecution that
the prisoners a few days ago went to the shop of the
prosecutor and purchased a variety of articles, consisting
chiefly of wearing apparel, for which they paid in rail-
way tickets. On the following day another attempt was
made to obtain more goods, but the• forgeries in the
meantime having been discovered, the prisoners were
apprehended. On being charged by the officer who ap: _
prehended them, the prisoners admitted having the
articles, and asserted that they " cashed" the tickets for
a person whom they did not know.
Mr. Ayres, the contractor, stated that the tickets
were forgeries, and that he never employed either of the
prisoners. He said, in reply to the magistrates, that the
name of Benjamin Flint on the ticket was the person
from whom he received the money.
Mr. Woollgar, one of the magistrates, said the bench
were decidedly opposed to the ticket system; they
thought it was bad from beginning to end, and the
sooner it was put a stop to the better.
Howell, one of the prisoners, said in his defence, that
he had met several men, one of whom said he had been
at work for Ayres, and as he wanted a pair of boots at
Bridge's, where Ayres's tickets would not pass, he wished
to exchange them, and that he (Howell) gave him 20s.
of Wymark's for 225. of Ayres's, and that he also gave
another man 11. for 33 more is. tickets.
It also appeared in evidence that some hundreds of
pounds of these tickets had been forged, and that several
other persons would be apprehended shortly.
The prisoners were fully committed for trial.

DUTCH

MAIL.

VIENNA, Nor. 18.—We learn that a law will be
shortly published with respect to the abolition of the
Corvees in Galicia. It is said that the Archduke Stephen
of Bohemia, where he has become a favourite among all
classes of people, will soon leave Prague, and take the
place of the Archduke Louis in the cabinet of the Em-
peror. A. Bourgrave is to be appointed in Bohemia,
which post is to be confided to Count Stadion.
FRANKFORT, NOT. is still uncertain whether
Cracow will remain a free city, like Brody, or whether
it will be included in the jurisdiction of the Austrian
Customs. The merchants of Cracow are very important
purchasers at the fairs of Frankfort or Leipsig. It is
hoped that Prussia, the most important state of the
Zollverien, when it was decided to abolish the Republic,
has taken care to provide for the interest of commerce
which is already so restricted in the eastern provinces.
FRANKFORT, Nov. 24.—The Vienna Gazette publishes
a commercial treaty between Austria and the kingdom
of the Two Sicilies. By this treaty the differential du-
ties on the productions of the two countries are to be
abolished, and an entire freedom of trade and naviga-
tion between them to be established. The Council of
Administration of Warsaw has given notice that the
existing duty on coffee: of fifteen silver roubles per cwt.
shall be placed on an equality with the duty levied on
that article. in Russia, viz. nine silver roubles and
twenty-five copees.
The Cologne Gazette at length breaks the silence
which it has hitherto observed relative to the affairs of
Cracow. It endeavours to prove that France and Eng-
land have no right to attack the measures adopted by
the three northern powers. The author of this article,
after having observed that, in fact, Cracow had for a
long time no more than a shadow of independence; after
having insinuated in the second place, that Cracow was
no more free than the lonian islands are at present under
the protection of England, continues as follows:
"By what right do France and England complain of
tahlseovaiolfartieeoncooufnttrhye,
whichrights of
n a
foot in contempt of the laws of humanity ?
rtoi on
nqsuerorlstrenitsaAvseulgnedrea thera
haveth
thernnot the
Cossacks treated Poland in a more barbarouse women
manner
the inventors of the razzias treat
children of unhappy Africa ? d_
I d, but fo
r
the
with
Guizots and the Pabnerstons to reproach us it
same right to liberty and independence ? d 0
00t notor
mean to justify the partition ofo
the
do
We do not pretend that our Ministers and
betterstatesman
than France or England ; but we affirm that
they do not act worse."
TIIE HAGUE, Nov. 25.—His Highness Duke Her-
mann of Saxe Weimar, who has passed some days in this
town, set out early this morning for Rotterdam, whence
he will continue his journey by way of Belgium and
France.

Nov. 26.—His Majesty the,King left us this morning
x) go to Soetsdyk.
Her Royal Highness the Princess of Hesse arrived

here to-day- from Antwerp.—Dtdch Papers' Nov. 28.

DARING BURGLARY AT YORK.—On .Wednesday
morning last, at one o'clock, four men enteredsthe house
bf Mr. Wilson, of West Cottage, which is situated about
a mile and a half from this city, on the Boroughbridge-
road, by taking out a window at the back of the pre-
mises. , The thieves went up stairs, covered the inmates
overhead with the bedclothes, and threatened that if
they afterwards said" anything about the matter they
should all be murdered. After the robbers had remained
about an hour in the house, they decamped, taking away
with them a quantity of- wearing apparel, a sovereign,
and 9s. in silver.—Yorkshiretnan.
FOREIGN BRICKS.--A parcel of 50,000 bricks has
arrived by a vessel from Efamburgh, and another of
40,000, by the Catalina, from Antwerp, both cargoes
being destined for re-exportation.