Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-16
THE CROFTER'S WOE,
Long Career of Suffering From the
Days of the Scottish Clan
Down to the Present.
WHAT He WAS UNDER A CHIEF,
Terrible Times That Followed the Down
fall of the Stuarts and the
EvictiOnS Later.
AN AGE OF EXTORTION AND CRUELTY.
What HIs Been Accomplished BY the CfOfsrs Commits
sion IN Recent Years.
AN AGE OF EITORTION AND CRUELTY.
Whist HIs Been Accomplished BY the CfOftsrs Commits
sion IN Recent Years.
tcoRREsPoEpENcE oF THE D1sPArc

.ICORkESPOHDENCE OF THE D1sPATCH.l
THURso, SCOTLAND, November 3.-Tc
the average American the ''crofter" has al
ways been a dim legend Of the isles and
Highlands of Scotland. Though the ''croiter
question" has for over half century been
the 'Irish question" of Scotland, and has
had much to do in effecting certain impor-
tant land reforms in the kingdom, the "woes
OF poor Donald, though as sad and hopeless
as those of the Irish peasant, have agitated
Scotland exclusively rather than America
largely, as in the latter case.
At the end OF the eighteenth century the
tenants of the smallest Scotch divisions OF
land, in distinction from tenants holding
from five to 100 acres and upward, were first
called erofters; that is, acre-men or crofters.
In those davs the crofters had the same re-
lation to Highland tenants of the important
class who cultivated something like farms,
as the cotters o; the present day do to Irish
and English small farmers and the still
smaller farmer, or crofter, of the Highlands;
and the Scottish crofter OF to-day is simply
that surviving relic of the ancient High
lander, who, despite all efforts of the owner
Of great northern and western Highland
estates TO extirpate him. absolutely starves
along where the bones of his ancestors lie, on
one-hUndredth as much land as, on the aver
age, is devoted to the rearing and killing Of
one red deer.
EVOLUTION OF THE CRoFTER.
The evolution of the woebegone crofter OF
to-day from the olden matchlessly brave
Highland warrior of the north and west is,
briefly, as follows: He was long ago an in
tegral portion of the clan system. "Clau"
is a Gaelic word meaning Child" The
ciansman was in the highest sense the child
OF his chief. The clan system is the family
system on larger scale. All clansmen
were brethren in 4 common family and in
stitutional preference for the purpose of
recognized heads and authority could not
abolish equality in every other respect and
particular. The absolute loyalty to the
chief to the limit of freely giving lie in de-
fense, or aggression, was tribute of fealty to
family and tribal relations, rather than to
the absolUtism of individual authority.
Each clansman had absolute and unden-
liable share in the territory occupied by the
entire clan. If he paid tribute to the head
Of the clan, it could never have been in the
form of rent to an individual owner, for
temporary occupancy. 1t was practically
self-imposed and freely bestowed taxation
Tor public purposes, common offense or de-
tense, common betterment, the common
good. Under this system the result was
agricultural com mpetency, pastoral simplicity
and pleasure, and surprising military valor
and virtues. The clansmen wove their own
cloth, forged their own tools and weapons,
titled their own soil, fed and grazed their
own sheep and cattle and possessed inalien-
able rights to their own homes and the soil
necessary TO sustain them.
THE NoBLEsr OF CoLoN1sTs.
He perforce possessed habits of hardihood:
his healthy life OF the mountaineer made
him strong and brave; the necessities OF
limitations gave him shrewd craft in all
eIlgencies; doing everything with his own
hands he became perfected in eXpedients
rather than the dwaried, one-sided man re-
sultant from later-dav infinite division of
labor; and thus when his sad dSy of ex-
patrlation came these Scottish Highlanders
gave to the United States, to Canada and to
Australia the most grandly sell-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 gIens provided
an all-consuming nature-worship; his an
cestrY and the traditions of his lineage be-
came his eEultantly-sung epics; his chief
and the deeds OF his clan were adored with
almost the passion of idolatrv. His deyo-
ton TO the Stuarts, from Cromwell's time to
Bonnie Prince Charlie, was sublime in its
desperate Loyalty, and furnishes some of the
most thrilling pages in history. But being
too far from Edinburgh, London and Paris
to know the political time of dav," he al
l., L.
little mercy was shown him or his more
dangerous chiefs.
STORY OF HIS DOWNFALL.
You can to-day still see the tremendous
walls OF Fort William, Fort Augustus, Fort
George and Kings House, the trans-Gram-
plan iuries established after the first rebel
lion of 171j, to awe him into submission,
their English names breaking his spirit
greater than the men and armament they
housed. Then, after Culloden, when all his
hopes were blasted in the utter ruin of the
House Of Stuart, came the disarming act,
depriving him Of the right to bear arms, es-
sential in his eyes to manhood; and, imme-
dlately on the heels of this, followed that
most bemeaning of all Highland humilia-
tions, the interGict against his beloved kilt
and tartan, which for wears made him skulk
aud hide in his mountain home q pitiIul OBJ
ject of contumely and disgrace
The downfall of the Stuarts caused a conn.,
plete disruption of the clan system. Then
followed the abolition of heritable jurisdic-
ton. The power of the chiefs, good or bad.
was transferred to LAWYER adventures sent
into the North from Glasgow and Edin-
burgh. The Highlanders began to loathe
their own country, and the chiefs lost all
Interest IN the welfare of their people. I'M
portant emigration resulted lesseninc
products and revenues. Many great clan
terribries changed hands. New Landlords
or dlsplrlted and bankrupt former chiefs
began to look upon the Highland peasantry
simply as chattels to be bought and sold as
mere slaves.
THE BARBAROUS CLEARANCES.
Then in the latter part of the last and the
first part OF the present century, as the pro-
prletors OF estates abandoned all mercy to a
people with inherent rights in the soil from
which they sprang, and taking refuge under
the absolutlsm vested in the powers granted
under the old Scottish feudal laws. which.
by successive encroachments, had trans
formed the original authority of suzeraip
into absolute private ownership, came the
barbarous "clearances" or forcible evic-
tions of Glen Dessarv, Clanranald and
GIengarry. Following this, and continuing
from 1907 to lS29, were perpetrated the
atrocious Sutherland clearances.
Tine most of the entire shire of Sutber-
land then belonged and still belongs to the
noble house of Sutherland and Stafford. re. |
lated by intermarriage. The then living |
of these noble families con.
ceiyed the idea that sheep were more profit |
able than Highlanders. That was before |
British sportsmen let the Highland land |
lords know that deer and grouse could be |