The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-18 00:00:00

DESTITUTE HIGHLANDERS OF

THE HEBRIDES.

INVERNESS, JAN. I4.—A public meeting was held
here to-day, in the Down-hall, to hear an address from

C. Bond, &q., Secretary of the Royal Patriotic and In-
dustrial Society of Scotland, regarding the appalling
destitute condition of numbers of the peasantry in the
West Highlands and Islands, and on the means of af-
fording immediate relief and effecting their permanent
improvement.

Among others present were the Revs. A. Clark, J.
Thorhurn, J. Scott, R. Kennedy; Capt. Black, Lieut.
Fra,er, Messrs. J. Sutherland, late Provost, G. France,
Ross, R. Campbell, Mulock, Howden, B.
Laing, &c.
The Rev. ALEXANDER CLARK having been called
upon to preside, in energetic terms impressed the object
of the meeting, and concluded by calling upon the Secre-
tary of the Ro) al Patriotic and Industrial Society to
address the meeting.

Mr. BoND, sifter adverting to the unfortunate neglect
by the Highland Relief Boards of those measures of
provident and permanent improvement which the Pa-
triotic Society had, during four years of destitution,
urged upon those bodies as the only means of terminating
that calamity, and preventing the evils of famine which
now threatened the lives of at least 50,000 persons in the
Highlands, he instanced the gratifying adoption of the
plans cf the society by the Perthshire Ladies' Relief
Committee. He then described the fearful condition of
the people in the more destitute districts which he had

recently visited, and the liberal manner in which 1;;;;;;:l

been met by proprietors and their representatives in
expunging debts against crofters, and bestowing
leases on as many as the Patriotic Society could
hold out the hope of aiding and instructing.
Lord Macdonald, the representatives of Colonel Gordon,
of Clury, and other proprietors, bad engaged to
give land for model spade farms, to be attached to every
school, the society would undertake to initiate and su-
perintend in the requisite system of husbandry.
Mr. Bend expressed his conviction that neither pro-
prietors nor tact-men would stand. in the way of any
practical improvement, and that if the society possessed
the means, it could go from one end of the destitute High-
lands to the other without having a single rational pro-
posal on behalf of the people denied by either of the
above classes. Having explained the success of parochial
tams, and their application to Inverness and the desti-
lute Highlands, he showed that the, lives of the people
might be preserved by their employment in reproduc-
tive cultivation, in return for immediate supplies, to be
advanced by Government, as in the case of Ireland, ob-
serving that because the Highland population had not
required even a sergeant's company to keep them quiet,
there was a still greater reason that they should hot be
allowed to perish as they were at that time on the brink
of doing.
After a discussion, in which tho chairman, the Rev.
Mr. Thorburn, Mr. France, Mr. Mulock, and other
gentlemen, took part, a vote of cordial approval of the
labours of the Patriotic Society was passed unanimously
with the exception of one dissentient, Mr. Mulock; also
a requisition for a meeting to address Government on
the subject of Highland destitution. A petition to Par-
liament was also adopted in behalf of the Highlanders,
and their permanent improvement through the agency
of the Royal Patriotic Society. After votes of thanks to
Mr. Bond and to the chairman the meeting adjourned.