The Andrew County Republican. [volume] (Savannah, Mo.) 1871-1876, 1872-11-22
DEsoLArE SCOTLAND.
Net Exactly the Picture Of Caledonia that
He- Poets Paint for Us-Feudalism, Sssal.
or and Depopaiation.

Net Fxactly the Picture Of Caledonia thai
He- Poets Paint for Us-Feuaalism, Seal.
or and Depopuiatfon.
Justin McCarthy's Letter to the New Yo,k Mail.
To pass from England into Scotland
is to go from prose into poetry. But
the poetical in real life is not usually
the comfortable. In the building Of
cities Charles Dickens observes that
cholera and the picturesque are com.
monty found to be associated. Scotland
pays for her beauty by having to turn
herself into a show-place, and for her
poetry by a great deal of feudalism, dis.
comfort and poverty. know NO coun-
try where the distinction of caste is
more sternly and eveu coarsely marked
out. The local Duke or Marquis seems
everywhere to be regarded almost ex.
actly as he might have been in the
feudal times-as q sort of heayenap-
pointed ruler and King. In England,
after al, nobody cares much about a
Lord, except people who have chance
of being invited to dine with him. The
average middle class Briton, who never
dreams Of such q privilege, concerns
himself little about Peers, and has no
more natural reverence for Duke than
he has for Lord Mayor. But in Scot.
land you live always under the shadow
of the Duke-this. that, and the other
Duke. Go into little Highland inn,
and you see the Dukes portrait, the
Duchess portrait, a volume containing
an account Of all the Dukes ancestors
and family; the talk is of what the
Duke will not allow, what he has done,
what he has promised, whether he will
not permit the road to be made here or
the hotel to be built there, when he is
coming from London or returning thith.
er, who has seen him at church, and 30
forth. The Dukes country house, where
you pay shilling and see some of the
rooms, is called "The Palace" con.
fess l grew weary cf the Duke as Hip
polyta did Of the moor, and wish he
would change, and even find it relief
to pass from the domiuion of one Duke
into the domain of another. In the
the country seems to q mere
traveller to be all but depopulated.
There are the cities, of course, and in
the picturesque places there are the
hotels, and there are the places of the
Dukes and the shooting lodges of the
English gentry who come in the season
10 shoot grouse. Beside this, there is
one might say. You travel for
hours aud see nobody. Some of the
Highland villages, when you do SEQ
hem, are as miserable collection of
novels as could be found even in the
vest of Ireland. Dirt, squalor and ma
kedness are everywhere. You will
.carcely see anywhere a woman. who
wears shoes anu svvS,.i-e- The oh 4o,en-
are all but naked. We saw the other
day big raw boned girl, fully fourteen
years old, should say, amusing herself
with other children in the open air.
The rain WAS pouring heavily. The girl
aad apparently no garments but rag
,ed frock with a very short skirt. Her
egs and feet were bare, of course; but
n that condition she was only like
everybody else. Her poor little frock,
was all torn from the neck TO
he woist-could hardly be said to have |
/ body left to it-snd her whole chest |
vas as bare as her forehead to the pelt |
ng rain. We here are accustomed, of |
,ourse, to regard Scotland as highly |
prosperous country, a model Of energy |
md intelligence, an example and shame
o poor Ireland. Well, Glasgow is
,reat ilourishing city, and Greenock is
,asy, and the Clyde is alive with ship
but outside the cities / see a
country which is fast becoming depopu- |
ated. Prosperity. What is prosperity?
Do a big city, a Dukes castle, and a
lotel in the Highlands constitute ma
ional prosperity? Is this place which
look upon from my window prosper
'us? If it is, then 30 is the Atlantic
prosperous as you gaze over it from the
leck CT one of the Cunard steame rs.
There you have steamer, and good
Inner, and well-dressed guests on
,oard, and the ocean outside. Here
ou have hotel well filled with tour.
sts, and outside wilderness. All
round this one big hotel there is abso-
utely no population.