The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-11-29
A Social Crime.
EVICTION IN THE SCOTCH HIGHLANDS.

Tho Spectator, in an article commenting on
the dispute between Sir James Matheson and
his Bernera tenantry, says: The story is
slight and in sense trivial but it Is valu-
able for the light which it throws on the
power welded by the owners of the soil in
the Highlands of Scotland. No despotism
could be more complete. And some of them
rule an almost gly stretch of territory,
Some of them can ride over their estates for
thirty or forty miles in one direction without
seeing patch of ground that is not their own.
Most of it is moorland, no doubt, and is of
little value in comparison with the rich corn
fields of England. 1t is chiefly made up of
bare hill-sdes and deserted glens But there
vas a time when these glens W ere not deserted.
Some that are now absolutely bare once held
nearly 100 families, and many were once the
sites of thirty or forty farms.
"The walls of many old homesteads are still
standing, and the burrows of the fields can still
growing heather. There is not a sadder sight
In all the Highlands. The men and the women
who once lived in these cottages belonged to a
class which is unhappily becoming rare, and
the loss of which we shall some day bitterly
regret. 1t will be said that they lived in
poverty, and that it was better for them to
seek comfort in the United States than to toll
for bare subsistence in Lewis or Braemer.
But many of them never went to America (;
they went to the slums of the large towns;
and such places of horror as the Cowgate of
Edinburg with it's rich collection of the most
villainous faces under the sun, is o terrible
com nentary on the Highland clearauces.
THAT it was necessary, in some cases, to
lessen the number of the inhabitants is
questionable, and equally undeniable is it that
the work was sometimes done with humanity,
the poor crofters being sent to America at the
expense of the landlord, and there provided
with means of subsistence. But in many other
cases they were simply showed out as if they
had been so much rubbish, and left to beg or
die, for all that their masters cared. The
Sutherlandshire clearances raised cry of
indignation throughout Europe, but they
mats had 9TH In N her.
landshre the pnrpose of the landlord was
respectable. for 1t WAS to mass the small farms
into sheep-runs, and whatever the motive
might have been, the change did add to the
national supply ot food.
Bat most of the latter clearances have been
effected for the purpose of supplying rich and
brainIess men "ith what they call sport in
the shape of Devastating. Deer can be
stalked only in DESERT They must be free
from the intrusion of farmers, shepherds, sheep,
and even grouse. And III order that q few rich
and titled men may fill up the vacancy of the
autumn and of their own minds by shooting a
few Gmd stays, thousands of families have
been turned adrift on the world and the whole
glens have been converted into soIitudes. The
artifcers of all this ruin and misery have not
even the excuse that they wanted to make
money. Most of them are rich beyond the
dreams of plebeian avarice, and they have
really sacrificed a part of their rent-roll in
order to secure desert for the qualification of
tn cir own selfish pleasure.
" Standing in the midst of one of these arti- !
fetal solitudes few weeks ago, distinguished
Indian statesman, the ruler of millions, said to
the present writer that nothing could SO in |
cline him to be Democrat the sight of
such colossal aristocratic sefshness. The
says little about the scandal, because |
it is ignorant of the facts, or does not know |
what they mean. But the truth cannot be |
long hidden. and meanwhile the great land
owners of the Highlands are fashioning the
most dangerous weapons ever put into the |
hands of demagogues. If they were not blind |
to the future they would not dare to push poor
homesteads and family life out of the way to
make q hunting field The walls of rnined
homes will some day testify against them with
words more terribly eloquent than any demo-
cratic denunciations.
Every attempt TO repeat the social crime of
riding rou gh-shod over the sacred, if uuwritten,
rights of the poor people who lie at their
mercy should mean while be singled out for
The only punishment that the Highland land
ords fear-the Punishment of publicity. They
10 dread the tribunal of the newspapers. They
rave been known to take away a mans farm
rom him because he had given some accurate,
md, therefore. damaging, information respect
nR the extent of land that had been mede
lesert for the sake of deer. No opportunity
hould be lont OF holding up their acts to the
of public notice, and, therefore, we
ave let daylight in upon the not unexception-
lily harsh, Though hard and absolute, SOW
reignty exercised by Sir James Matheson's
Irand Vizier."
49,.