Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-16

long ago an integral portion OF the clan
system. ''Clan - is a Gaelic word mean
ing ''Child. - The clansmau was in the
highest sense the child of his chief. The
clan system is the family system on
larger scale. All clansmen were breth-
rem III common family, and institu-
tioual preference for the purpose of re-
organized heads and authority could not
abolish equality il every other respect
and particular. The absolute loyalty to
the chief TO the limit of freely giving life
i'll defense, or aggression, was tribute of
fealty to family and tribal relations,
rather than to the absOlutism of individual
authority. Each clausman had absolute
and undeniable share in the territory &C.
cupiei by the entire clan. If he paid
tribute TO the head of the clan,
il could never have been in the form
OF rent to an individual owner,
for temporary occupancy. 1t was prac-
ticaily self-imposed aud freely be-
slowed taxation for public purposes,
common Offense or defense, common
bptterment, the common good. Under
this system the result was agricultural
competency, pastoral simplicity and
pleasure, and surprising military vaIor
ana virtues. The clans men wove their
own cloth, forged their own tools and
weapons, titled their own soil, fed and
ETaZed their own sheep and cattle and
possessed inalienable rights to their own
homes and the soil necessary 10 sustain
them. He perforce possessed habits of
hardihood; his healthy life of the noun
taineer made him strong and brave; the
necessities OF limitations gave him
shrewd craft in all exigencies: doing
everything with his own hands he be-
came perfected in eIpedeuts rather
than the dwarfen, oue-sided man re-
suitaut from later-day infinite division
of labor; and thus when his sad day of
repatriation came, the Scottish High
landcrs gave to the United States, to
Canada and to Australia the most
grandly self-sustaining colonists they
ever knew. Indeed his many splendid
characteristics
PROVED HIS OWN RUIN IN SCOTLAND.
No men living, barring perhaps his no
less unfortunate brethren, the Irish
Celts, ever displayed such consummate
love of home environment, kindred and
chief. His bens, lochs, straths and
Clens provided an all-cons uming nature
worship; his ancestry and the traditions
of his lineage became his exultantly sung
epics; his chief and the deeds of his elan
ilOlatry. His devotion to the Stuarts,
from Cromwell S time TO "Bounie Prince
Charlie, - was sublime in its despera
loyalty, and furnish some of the most
thrilling pages in history. But being too
far from Edinburgh, London and Paris
TO "know the political time of day, - he
always fought for q lost cause. Natur-
ally, little mercy was shown him or his
more dangerous chiefs. You can to-day
still see the tremendous walls of Fort
william, Fort Augustus, Fort George
aud Kings House, the trans Grampian
furies established after the first rebellion
OF l7l5, 10 awe him iuto submission,
their English names breaking his
spirit greater than the men and
armament they housed. Then.
after Culloden when all his hopes were
blasted III the utter ruin of the house of
Stuart, came the dsarming act, depriv-
ing him of the right to bear arms, essen
tial in his eyes TO manhood; and, imme-
diately on the heels of this, followed that
most bemeaning of ali highland
humiliations, the interdict against
his beloved kilt and tartan, which for
years ma e him skulk and hide IN his
mountain home, pitifu Of ject of COZ
tumely and Disgrace
The downfall Of the Stuarts caused u