The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1886-11-25
THE SKYE cRoFTERs.
P1tiful Condition of an Industrious sn
Honest Island Community.

! P1tiful Condition Of an Industrious and
Honest Island Community.
The service of writs for the non-pay-
ment or rates in Skye is revealing,
even more wildly than the startling
evidence given before the royal com.
missioners two or three years ago, the
terribly hard conditions of crofter life.
As house after house is visited by the
officers of the law, and the circum.
stances of the people are inquired into,
1t is seen that political teachings has
really had little to do with the crisis
that has brought sheriff officers, police
men and marines to the island, osten-
sibly to enforce the authority of the
law. The Skye crofters are not crimi.
nal people; still less are they tainted
with disloyalty. As general rule.
the defaulters sought for BY the sheriff
officers, backed by the constabulary
and the marines, are not the young and
stalwart and more prosperous members
of the crofting communities, but the
aged and feeble, the lame and the halt,
the widows and the families impover-
ished by the sickness or disablement
of the bread-winner-the classes, in
short, who ought to receive parish aid
rather than to pay poor rates In
nearly every place entered by the rep
resentatives of the authority of the
law it was found that the payment of
rates was withheld as necessity of
life and not on account of reputation
OF the obligation; because the constant
war waged with poverty left no money
to spare for taxation, and not
out of defiance to constitutional
authority. In a few cases, where
the existence of the means of
payment was not denied, it was
discovered that payment had not been
made because of some misunderstood
ing with the inspector of poor, or some
counter claim, or the application by
the factor of money offered for rates to
the liquidation of arrears for rent, or
to non-attendance of the collector.
The excuses seemed all more or less
reasonable; but whatever the excuse,
and whatever the distresses of the
people, the servers of the warrants
had no alternative, in the absence of
the money for the rates and the ex-
penses, but to pound the useful cow
that ''aft had wet the BARNES mou,"
or the still more serviceable pony, or
the few sheaves of corn raised from the
exhausted soil of the croft, or the stack
of peats piled laboriously during the
summer months as the winters fuel
supply. This is surely pitiful work for
the officers of benefcent government
to be engaged in. Is it not pitiful,
too, that the crofter who has so many
political friends should in the day of
his direst necessity be left helpless and
penniless to the tender mercies of the
law, which in his case are terribly
cruel? The advocates of the redress
of the crofters' grievances have surely
neglected most urgent part of their
duty in failing to provide relief fund
for the benefit of the distressing and
necessitous cases which are now being
revealed in Skye. Naturally, of course,
the sympathizers with the Highland
peasants and cotters are unwilling to
provide money for the payment of the
rack rents exacted by many landlords.
But the question at present involved is
not the payment of rents, but the pay
ment of rates.-LOndOn Ne1Cs.