The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1872-11-15
DESOLATE SCOTLAND.
Not Exactly the Picture Of Caledonia Tint
Her Poets Paint for Cs-Feudnlism, Saunl-
or and DepopulntiOn.


Her Post. Paint for Cs-Feudnlism, sauni-
or and Depopulntion.
Justin Mccarthy. Letter to the New York Mail.
To pass from England into Scotland
is to 20 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 10 turn
herself into a show place, and for her
poetry by 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 sort of heaven.ap-
pointed ruler and King. In England,
after all, nobody cares much about q
Lord, except people who have a chance
of being invited To dine with him. The
average middle.class Briton, who never
dreams of such 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, 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 so
forth. The Dukes country house, where
you pay shilling and see some of the
rooms, is called "The Palace" | con.
TESS | grew weary Of the Duke as Hip
polyta did of the moor, and wish he
would change, and even find it relief
10 pass from the dominion of one Duke
into the domain of another. In the
meanwhile the country seems TO 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
to shoot grouse. Beside this, there is
nothing, one might say. You travel for
hours and see nobody. Some of the
Highland villages, when you do see
them, are as miserable a collection OF
novels as could be found even in the
west of Ireland. Dirt, squalor and ma.
kedness are everywhere. You will
scarcely see anywhere a woman who
wears shoes and stockings. The children
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
had apparently no garments but rag
ged frock with very short skirt. Her
legs and feet were bare, of course; but
in that condition she was only like
everybody else. Her poor little frock,
however, was all torn from the neck to
the waist-could hardly be said to have
a body left to it-and her whole chest
was as bare as her forehead TO the pelt
ing rain. We here are accustomed oil
course, to regard Scotland as a highly
prosperous country, a model of energy
and intelligence, an example and shame
to poor Ireland. Well, Glasgow is q
great ilourishing city, and Greenock Ii
busy, and the Clyde is alive with ship
building; but outside the cities / see 8
country which is fast becoming depopu
lated. Prosperity. What is prosperity
Do a big city, Dukes castle, and {
hotel in the Highlands constitute ma
tional prosperity? Is this place which
l look upon from my window prosper
GUS? If it is, then so is the Atlantic
prosperous as you gaze over it from the
deck of one of the Cunard steamers
There you have a steamer, and gooc
dinner, and well.dressed guests or
board, and the ocean outside. Here
you have a hotel well filed with tour
lists, and outside wilderness. Al
around this one big hotel there is abso
lutely no population.