"On board the Conrad and the Birman were 518 persons from Mull and Tyree, sent out by his grace the Duke of ——-, who provided them with a free passage to Montreal, where on arrival they presented the same appearance of destitution as those from South Uist, sent out by Colonel ——-, that is, 'entirely destitute of money and provisions.'"
Numbers of these people perished, as we are told, of disease and want of food in the winter which followed their arrival in Canada; and that such would have been the case might naturally have been anticipated by those who exported them.
The wretched cotters who are being everywhere expelled from the land are forced to take refuge in cities and towns, precisely as we see now to be the case in Ireland. "In Glasgow," says Mr. Thornton—
"There are nearly 30,000 poor Highlanders, most of them living in a state of misery, which shows how dreadful must have been the privations to which such misery is preferred. Such of them as are able-bodied obtain employment without much difficulty, and may not perhaps have much reason to complain of deficiency of the first requisites of life; but the quarter they inhabit is described as enclosing a larger amount of filth, crime, misery, and disease, than could have been supposed to exist in one spot in any civilized country. It consists of long lanes called 'wynds,' so narrow that a cart could scarcely pass through them, opening upon 'closes,' or courts, about 15 or 20 feet square, round which the houses, mostly three stories high, are built, and in the centre of which is a dunghill. The houses are occupied indiscriminately by labourers of the lowest class, thieves, and prostitutes, and every apartment is filled with a promiscuous crowd of men and women, all in the most revolting state of filth. Amid such scenes and such companions as these, thousands of the most intelligent of the Highlanders are content to take refuge, for it is precisely those who are best educated and best informed that are most impatient of the penury they have to endure at home.
"The inhabitants of the Glasgow wynds and closes may be likened to those of the Liverpool cellars, or to those of the worst parts of Leeds, St. Giles's, and Bethnal Green, in London; and every other class of the Scottish urban labouring population may likewise be delineated with the same touches (more darkened, however,) which have been used in describing the corresponding class in English towns. Manufacturing operatives are in pretty much the same position in both countries. Those of Scotland shared even more largely than their Southern brethren in the distress of 1840-2, when Paisley in particular exhibited scenes of wo far surpassing any thing that has been related of Bolton or Stockport."—P. 77.
The extent to which these poor people have been driven from the land may be judged by the following statement of population and house-accommodation:—
Persons to
Population. Inhabited houses. a house.
—————- ————————- —————
1841…… 2,628,957…… 503,357…… 5.22
1851…… 2,870,784…… 366,650…… 7.83
Intemperance and immorality keep pace with the decline in the power of men over their own actions, as is shown in the following statement of the consumption of British spirits, under circumstances almost precisely similar as regards the amount of duty:—
Duty. Gallons. ——- ———— 1802………….. 3.10-1/2….. 1,158,558 1831………….. 3.4 …….. 5,700,689 1841………….. 3.8 …….. 5,989,905 1851………….. 3.8 …….. 6,830,710
In 1801 the population was 1,599,068, and since that time it has increased eighty per cent., whereas the consumption of spirits has grown almost six hundred per cent.!