, 1890-11-20
SCOTLAND CR0FTERS.
Their Evolution From Old
Time Highlanders.
ARE DEVOTED TO The STUARTS
Outrages to Which They Were
Long Subj eoted Have Been
Done Away With.

Isl ecIM Correspondence OF the REVIEW. |
TuuRso, Scotland, Sept 20, 1890.
TO the average American the
"crofter' has always been n dim
legend Of the isles and highlands of
Scotland. Though the 'crofter
question" has for over hulfia century
been the "Irlsh question" of Scot
land, and has had much to do In
effecting certain important land re-
forms in the kingdom, the "woes of
poor Donald" though rs sad and
hopeless as those of the Irish peas
ant, have agitated Scotland exclu-
sively rather than America largely,
as in the latter case. Their remote
ness have kept them from our uni
vcrsal ken, aud To that degree that,
while people of Scotch descent In
the United States and Canada have
been keenly alive to measures for
the crofter's relief, there are many
ordinarily well-iuformed Americans
quite unable to tell you the real diff
ference between a croft and q loft,
or crofter and n claymore.
Jameson in his "Scottlsh Die
tiouary" defines croft-land as Gland
OF superior quality, which was still
cropped" Chambers Encyclopaedia,
remarkable like most encyclopedias
for deepening ignorance and in
tenslfying longing for exact infor-
nation, says q 'croft" is piece of
land connected with humble kind
of dwelling, whose inhabitant, the
renter of the land, is called n
"croftcr." Lord Colin Campbell
asserts that the term "crofter" was
unknown In the seventeenth GEN.
tury, although in old tacks and
leases of that period the word "croft"
Is of common occurrence. He
further states that In the "tack," or
temporary holding, given by Sir
John Campbell, of Glenurchy, is q
'weil belouit" servant, in 1880,
besides the four MARYLAND Of Kin
crakin there were "the croft of
Polgreyich and the croft that Ewin
McIIwin was wont to have" In
the twelfth century English
charters in Latin, the word
Is often used. In fact 1t is
an Anglo-Saxon word mean-
ing simply "a field" 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
upwards, were first called crofters;
that Is, acre-men or crofters. In
those days the crofters had the same
relation to Highland tenants of the
important class who cultivated
something like farms, as the cotters
Of 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 Highlander,
who, despite all efforts of the owner
of great northern and western High
land estates to extirpate him, abso-
lutely starves along where the bones
of his ancestors lie, on one-hun-
dredth as much land as, on the
average, Is devoted to the rearing
and killing of one red deer.
HOW THE CHANGE WAS MADE.
The evolution of the woebegone
crofter of to-day from the olden
matchlessly brave Highland war
rlor of the North and West, is,
briefly, as follows: He was long
ago an integral portion of the clan
system. "Clan" Is u Gaelic word
meaning "child." The clansman was
in the highest sense the child of his
chief. The clan system is the family
system on u larger scale. All clans
men were brethren in q common
family and institutional 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 CIV
ing life in defense, or aggression,
was tribute of fealty to family and
tribal relations, rather than to the
absolutism of individual authority.
Each clansman had absolute and
undeniable share in the territory oc-
cupied by the entire clan.
If he paid tribute to the head of
the clan, 1t could never have been
in the form of rent to an individual
owner for temporary occupancy. 1t
was practically a self-imposed and
freely bestowed taxation for public
purposes, common ofiense or de-
tense, common betterment, the COM
mon good. Under this system the
result was agricultural competency,
pastoral simplicity and pleasure, and
SURPRISING military valor and vir-
tues. The clansmen wove their own
cloth, forged their own tools and
weapons, titled their own soil, fed
and grazed heir own sheep and cat
tie and possessed inalienable rights
to their own homes and the soil nee
essary to sustain them.
He perforce possessed habits Of
hardihood; his healthy life of the
uountaineer made him strong and
brave; the necessities of Limitations
gave him shrewd craft in all exi-
gencies; doing everything with his
own hands he became perfected in
eSpedients rather than the dwarfed,
one-sided man resultant from later
day infinite division of labor; and
thus when his snd day of expatria-
tion came, these Scottish High land
ers gave to the United States, to