Glasgow Courier. — 1846-12-24 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

DEI  ITIITION IN THE HIGHLANDS. THE LATE MEETING IN EDINBURGH.  (From the Edinburgh Advertiser.) We treat the result of the numerous and respectable roasting which took place in the Music Hall on Friday, will be to draw forth the liberality of the citizens of Edinburgh, and of the people of Scotland generally, in behalf of the destitute Highlanders and islanders, whose urgent sufferings have elicited the sympathies of all classes of their fellow-countrymen. The crowded attendance on the occasion referred-to, and the emulation among all present to use their utmost exertions in procuring the means of relief, we regard as a guarantee that the amount of the contributions to be collected will be in some degree commensurate with the severity and pressure of the distress. Never were the charities of the public appealed to under circumstances more loudly demanding the interposition of the benevolent and wealthy. The prevalence of misery and famine is too apparent to admit of doubt, and too urgent to abide delay. Thousands of our fellowcreatures are sinking under want; and calling for aid to their lowland brethren who possess a more abundant share of the blessings and comforts of this life than they have been favoured with. , As Mr. M`Leod of Dalkeith, whose eloquent pleading for his famishing countrymen drew tears from many of the audience in the room, stated the sufferings in the Highlands are but at the beginning, and fearfully on the increase. If there are now 330,000 in I these districts deprived of the usual means of subsistence this year; if 200,000 of these require assistance to enable them to live over the season; and if the remaining 130,000 must have food immediately to save them from starvation; if this be the case now, what may be expected in spring, between which and the present appeal, the cold and suffering of four or five dreary months Intervene? If " the skeleton arms" are already held up begging for relief; if the eyes of the poor sufferers are now straining to catch in the distant horizon a faint glimpse of the vessel that nears their shores, in the hope of its being freighted with provisions; what will be the situation of these sequestered Islanders if aid is not promptly administered? They are already the victims of want. Famine has visited their cheerless dwellings : and although they bear their sufferings with patient ormoluplaining silence, though they do not threaten insurrection nor resort to arms to extort food by violence and murder, like the Irish, their distress is not leas urgent, and ought to touch with equal sympathy "the electric wire of our common humanity." We cannot but agree with Mr. M'Leod, that Government, notwithstanding what was said in their defence at the meeting, has not done their duty to the Highlanders. It will not do to allege they were unaware of the existence or extent of the distress; that lias been notorious for the last two months, and public attention has been again and again directed to it through the columns of the press. But the clamour .from Ireland seemed to have drowned all ether cries of suffering, and shut out all alter applicants from the chance of relief. They have offered, it appears, to supply vessels to convey Highlanders I who miy wish for employment elsewhere, or to carry food from ! Glasgow to the Highlands ; but this food must be purchased ! at the market price; and as Mr. M'Leod observed, it is retailed ! at a prdllt of 50 per cent, and offered at this exorbitant rate to ! people who have not a penny to buy it. We hope, however