Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-11-04
,UNCANNY SCOTIA.
The Dirty, DesOlate Dominion Oi
the Scottish Dukes-Patnful Pie
tureBq ueness.

the scottish DukeB-Patnful Pic
turesqueness.
Justin Mccarthy writes from Ben
Nevis, Scotland, to the New York Even
ing Mail:
To pass from England into Scotland
is to go from prose to 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 show place, as | set out
in former letter, and for her poetry by
great deal of feudalism, discomfort and
poverty. i know no country where the
distinction of caste is more sternly
and even coarsely marked out. The
local duke or marquis seems everywhere
to be regarded almost exactly as he
might have been in the feudal
times--as a sort of heaven appointed
ruler and king. In England, after
all, nobody cares much for a lord
except people who have a chance
Of being invited to dine with him. The
average middle-class Briton, who never
dreams OF such a privilege, concerns
himself little about peers, and has no
more natural reverence for duke than
he has for lord mayor. But in Scotland
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 ac-
count of the dukes ancestors and fami-
ly; 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 thitber, who has
seen him at Church, and so forth. The
dukes country house where you pay a
shilling and see some of the rodens) is
called The Palace" confess | grew
weary Of the duke as Hippolyta did of
the moor, and wish he would change, and
even find it relief to pass from the
dominion of the duke into the domain Of
another. In the meanwhile, the country
seems to O mere traveller to be all but
depopulatedl There are the cities of
course, and in the picturesque places
there are the hotels, and there are the
palaces of the dukes, and the shooting
lodges Of the English gentry who come
ip the season to shoot grouse. Besides
this there 10 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 collec-
ton of novels as could be found even in
the west of ireland. Dirt, squalor and
nakedaess ere everywhere. You will
scarcely see anywhere & woman who
wears shoes and stockings. The children
are all but naked. we saw the other day
q big, raw-boned girl, fully fourteen years
old, ! ebould say, amusing herself with
other ebildrsp in the open air. The rain
was pouring heavily The girl had ap-
parehtly no garments but ragged frock
With gsrY short skirt. Her legs and
feet were bare, nf lqqrse; but IN that
condition she was only like everybody
elss. Her poor little frock, however, was
all torn from the neck to the waist could
hardly be said to have body left to it,
and her whole chest was as bare as her
forhhR2d to the peltng rain. We here
are accustomed, Of course, to regard
Scotland as . highly prosperous coun-
try, a model of energy and intelligence,
an example, and shame to poor Ire
land. Well, Glasgow is great and
fourishing city, and Greenock is busy,
and the Clyde is alive with shipbuilding;
but oEtside the cities l see country
which is fast bssoHing depopqlsted.
Prosperity What is PROSPERITY 20 a
big city, dukes castle, and hotel in
the Highlands constitute national pros
perityf Isthis place which ! look upon
from my vidow psesIerous9 If it is,
then so is the Atlantic prosperous as YoE
gaze over il from the deck Of one ofthe
steamer, sna 8 good dinner, and we'll
dressed guests on board, sRd tRs qeeaR
outside. Here you have a hotel we'll
filed with tourists, and outside a wilder
ness. All around this one big hotel there
is absolutely no population.