In 1532, William Hay of Mains sold the lands of Haugh to John Grant of Culcabock and of Glenmoriston. Grant's descendant sold Haugh to the Earl of Huntly in exchange for the undoubted Castle lands of Meikle and Little Hilton. Grant's charter to these excambed lands is dated 12th May 1623, and some time thereafter they were, inter alia, acquired by the Robertsons of Inshes. The Duke of Gordon had, as these facts were clearly proven, to submit ; further discredit being thrown on his Charters of 1662 and 1684, in respect they still comprehended Hilton, though Inshes had been some time in possession, and his charters confirmed by the Crown.

In 1796, the Duke of Gordon sold to David Davidson, first of Cantray, for £10,500, with the exception of the Castle Hill, the last shreds remaining of the great Castle lands, originally a magnificent estate within the parishes of Dalarossie, Dunlichity, Dores, Bona, and Inverness, then belonging to him, viz., Porterfield, parts of Altnaskiah, Haughs, the Castle Shot Fishings, all in the parish of Inverness; Bunachton, in Dores; and Drumboy, in Dunlichity; the present annual pecuniary value of the property belonging to the Gordons in this quarter having dwindled to one penny Scots for the blench superiority of the Castle Hill.

C. FRASER-MACKINTOSH.

DEPARTURE OF AN EMIGRANT SHIP.-The following is a graphic description of a scene at the Pier of Helmsdale in the beginning of January 1841, on the departure of an emigrant ship: :

"As the morning waned, every moment added to the throng t..at crowded the pier; party after party arrived with their friends, and the whole of the inhabitants of Helms. dale seemed to have assembled to wituess the departure. It was a bustling, vet melancholy, sight. The emigrants were taking leave of friends they could never expect to meet again-of a country they could never expect to see. The nervous "gitated looks of the men, the short. quick, broken ste, the conferences restlessly broken, and as restlessly renewed, all told of the deep agonising feelings they were in vain striving to overcome. The grief of the women was loud and open; clinging to the relatives they parted from, they poured forth, in almost uninteligible ejaculations, their agony at leaving the glens where they were born, and where they hoped to die, mingling in the same breath their blessings and their prayers for those whom, although they could never more see, they could never forget; while the children, stupified and bewildered at the scene around them, clung to their mothers, and wept with them. But the tide served, and the boatmen were impatient. An effort was made to throw some appearance of heartiness and good spirits into the last moments many were to spend on Scottish ground. Hands were wrung, and wrong again; bumpers of whisky tossed wildly off amidst cheers and shouts; the women were forced almost fainting into the boats, and the crowd upon the shore burst into a long, loud cheer, in which even the phlegmatic Dutchinen joined; and they were under way, while the poor forsaken dogs stretched their heads after their masters and bowled piteously. Again and again was that cheer raised, and responded to from the boat, while bonnets were thrown into the air, handkerchiefs wave, and last words of adien shouted to the receding shore: while, high above all, the will notes of the pipe were heard pouring forth that by far the finest of pibroch tunes, Cha tile sinn tuillie' (we return no more)."-Inverness Courier.

THE ETHICS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

PEASANT PROPRIETARY.

IT is due to the readers of this patriotic magazine to explain that a short absence from home prevents me from sending a consecutive chapter for the present number. In addition to this, the subject matter of it-the component parts of profit, and the cause and laws of interest-requires careful examination and extensive reference, as the subjects themselves, and those connected with them, have not only been a great difficulty to all authorities on political economy, but are still unexplained, owing, I think, to not being referred to fundamental natural law.

After the elucidation of the fundamental laws which constitute political economy a science-and the most important of all sciences-practical politics will naturally follow in a subsequent part of these papers; but in the meantime, and as the subject is an urgent one in connection with the Highlands, I would reproduce in these pages the following letter which I addressed to the Editor of the Glasgow Herald. The question of paying off the National Debt, and replacing it by a National Land Fund has been for some time the subject of my thoughts, and I am convinced that, socially and financially, its importance cannot be over-estimated :

THE HIGHLAND CROFTERS.

SIR,--Kindly permit me to make a few remarks which have been suggested by the leading article in your issue of the 2nd August relative to the case of the Highland crofters. Being entirely of your opinion as to the worthlessness of the theories of political economists, I prefer to look at the case of the Highlands as a matter of practical business - a light, indeed, in which the judgment of your Glasgow readers is of the shrewdest and best.

The most striking and instructive fact that has come to light in the evidence taken by the Royal Commission is the contrast between the condition of the freeholders of Orkney and that of crofters and tenant-farmers. There, in the very north of Scotland, exists the same state of comfort and contentment as obtains in these beautiful Channel Islands, our most southerly group. The opening of the Fisheries Exhibition --mainly through the excellent influence of our Royal Princes-may be regarded as a most useful and significant event at the present time, by which the attention of the country is directed to the importance of this national industry, and I observe that one

of the main complaints of the crofters is the want of harbours. Now, in this little island of Guernsey we have a population of freeholders and traders numbering nearly 35.000, or over 1200 to the square mile, and, instead of being "congested," labour is both dear and scarce. 66 Sutherlandshire has a congested" population of just 12 to the same area, and no harbours. Here we have the best harbour of refuge in the English Channel, built at a cost of over £300,000 by the inhabitants. The amount required was over-subscribed for, and with the balance they built a beautiful market at a cost of £30,000. It is estimated that the average wealth per head of the popula tion is double that of the United Kingdom.

The part of your temperate article to which I desire to direct particular attention is the felt difficulty as to the "remedy." Allow me to quote your remarks on this important subject, not for the purpose of animadversion, but with a view, if possible, to throw a gleam of light upon a very difficult problem. You say :-" Mr Ferguson points for a solution to the few yeomen in Orkney who own their holdings, and have no cares and no grievances. A very pleasant idyllic picture was certainly presented to the Commissioners, which shows us what thrift, and industry, and long possession of small farms with prudence can do. But the State did not buy their farms for these happy Orcadians, and did not supply the stock for them. How are we to provide the crofters of Lewis and Skye with equally free lands, well stocked, and with the same thrift and prudence? It is all very well to say here is the solution, but how is it to be applied? Is the State to buy out the landlords, and give sufficient farms to the crofters, stock the farms for them, and set them agoing rejoicing as small and independent lairds? The working men of the country in that case will have to pay for making the crofters happy and prosperous, and probably working men will ask what have the crofters done that we should so handsomely provide for them. If, on the other hand, the crofters are to pay back the money advanced by the State, the State will become the landlord and the receiver of the rents. What advantage will that be?" Pardon me for saying so, but if you had more faith in the Highlanders you would not think so much of the "hill Difficulty."

I am very much mistaken if the consent of the British workman, to whom you point, and very justly so, as the most interested outside party, is not the easiest part of the business. I should like to feel equally certain about the consent of the House of Lords. The "farmers' friends," who now find that the current of public opinion and feeling is running strongly against them, and seeing that no permanent relief can be extended to agricultural industry without some extensive scheme of finance, are taking the British workman into their confidence, and are acting upon his fears by shedding crocodile tears over him. We do not hear very much about him from that quarter when Afghan, African, and Egyptian wars are to be waged. The twenty millions that were spent on the Afghan wars is more than what may be required to expropriate Highland proprietors en bloc for constituting the remnant of the gallant Gaelic race into freeholders. We must therefore ask the British workman if he is equally willing to advance twenty millions, not as a gratuity, but at 3 per cent., on the security of the Highlands. Hard-pressed as the poor fellows have been, the crofters are not much in arrears for rack rents, and, perhaps, less so than large farmers, whilst many of them, I am glad to know, have money on deposit in the banks, which, as well as their labour, they are not free to deposit in a much safer bank-the soil of their country - for fear of confiscation.

The economic law to which you refer in another part of the article, as having brought about the present crisis, does not appear to have affected freeholders. Does

this not prove that it is not an economic but a very wasteful law? The answer comes readily enough to everybody's lips, "It is the rights of property." But in what de these consist? If landlords are supposed to be carrying on a business, the only commercial definition I can give of them is that they are land usurers a thing that has been hateful to God and man since the world began. By the operation of this economic law sheep-farming paid the landlord better than a peasantry, and now deer forests pay better than farming. Therefore it will pay the proprietors of Lewis (to which island, by the way, Mr Gladstone was so thankful for defending him from the waves of the Atlantic-a piece of good luck which was hardly vouchsafed to the Royal Commissioners) to convert it entirely into a deer forest and grouse moors, and get the population to emigrate. But then its trade with Glasgow would cease, and Stornoway would dwindle down to the size of Ullapool. Under these circumstances to expect that landlords will meet the demand of the crofters by enlarging their holdings is hopeless, and it is equally hopeless to expect that any measure on the lines of the Irish Land Act will meet the case.

Of course, it would be foolish to expect that the crofters could at once by a coup d'etat be placed in equally comfortable a position with the freeholders of Orkney and the Channel Islands, or that they could get land without paying for it. You are supposing a case which they themselves do not suppose or anticipate. There are crofter-fishermen in the Island of Lewis who are able to pay down for as much land as they care to occupy. The price at which that estate was bought was under ten shillings an acre. Supposing it to have doubled in value, a crofter could have ten acres of moor land for ten pounds, which, by the labour of himself and family, he would in the course of time raise to the value of twenty pounds per acre. It will not pay the capitalist to do it, but it will pay the poor man handsomely if he can call it his own for ever, but not otherwise. The reason is apparent. The capitalist has to

pay for adult labour, whereas the labour of the crofter's wife and children is as effective as his own in removing peat banks and clearing the ground of stones They will be able to stock and improve their own farms if they get what they want—more ground and elbow-room--and in course of time there is no reason why they should not be as comfortable as the freeholders of Orkney.

But in order to accomplish so desirable an object, they must be made freeho ders at a quit-rent, after the manner of the Prussian legislation; and, to go on the lines of the British Constitution, it is only necessary to put the ancient prerogative of the Crown in motion by resuming the Highlands as a State domain for the purpose of re colonisation in freehold, after the example of Frederic the Great, fatner of his country. Why should not we have a Victoria the Great, the mother of her country? Indeed, it would be but a well-deserved tribute of respect to her personal worth to second her well-known affection for the Highlands and to confer freedom upon that portion of her people. Let Caledonia be free! Freedom and security in perpetuity will act like magic, as it has done elsewhere, in calling forth industry and producing thrift. In a condition of freedom the bones and sinews of Highlanders will exert themselves as well in peace as in war, and no better security, in both fields, can the British work. man find anywhere, whilst the certain future unearned increment" will go to reduce his taxes Nor is it the crofters alone who stand in need of this blessing. The large farmers have had as little security for their capital in improvements as the crofters have had in respect of their labour, and the houses of the former are perhaps as much in want of repairs as those of the latter.

What I should propose to the British workman is to make it a test question at

the next election that a bill for the resumption of the Highlands in the name of the Crown be brought into Parliament, under which the Government should expropriate all landlords except those who farm, or are willing to farm, their estates by means of paid labour, leaving their manorial residences, home farms, and policies to large owners. That a loan bearing 3 per cent. interest be issued to the public as the opening of a general national land fund capable of any expansion that may from time to time be found necessary for enabling farmers to become freeholders of their holdings. If the Highland landlords should stand too much on the validity of their original titles, on examination it may be found that most, if not all of them, are very largely tainted with fraud, force, and high treason.—I am, &c.

Guernsey.

MALCOLM MACKENZIE.

THE NAME RIACH OR REOCH.-In the Celtic Magazine, Oct. 1883, is a query about this name. The Gaelic Riabhach means greyish. It was applied to some one, say Donald Macgregor, when he arrived at the age of forty or fifty, to distinguish him from some younger person bearing the same Christian name, and also a Macgregor. In English the name is spelled Riach, Reoch, Reik, Reikie : near Dunkeld a resident there is satisfied with spelling it Rake. Rough (Perthshire) is perhaps the same. The clever and popular writer, Angus B Reach, was a Riach. Perhaps some of those called Rich belong to this name What is the best way to spell the name in English? As Riach is nearer Riabhach, it is better than Reoch. When our Scotch names go south across the Border, they suffer many things: the natives there, with a real or a pretended inability to sound ch guttural, make it either a k or ch soft ; sometimes they drop it altogether. Thus Tulloch is altered to Tullock and to Tulloh. Kinloch is made Kinlock. Strachan is made Straghan and Strahan. Murdoch is turned into Murdock and Murdo. Rolloch was made Rollock and Rollo. Malloch appears as Mallock. Are the Riachs a clan? This question is asked by your correspondent. The descriptive word Riabhach was used in the same way as Dubh, dark; Donn, brown-haired; Ban, light-haired; Buidhe, light-haired; Gorm, having blue eyes; Mor, More, big, tall; Beag, Begg, short; Kitto, Ciotach, left-handed; Cam, deformed; Borrie, Bodhar, deaf; Glas, grey, pale; Og, young. Several others might be added. When a person lived in a district where all were Macgregors, and many of them named Donald, people got tired of giving a person any more names than his Christian name and his name of description. If he emigrated he might go on with the name of Donald Riach, leaving out his family-name or clan-name of Macgregor. It would be a mistake to suppose that Riach is a clan name. In theory all Macgregors are related to each other. Calling the number of clans twenty, you may have twenty groups of Riachs who are not related to each other. I apologise for making this note so long, and for telling many readers what they knew before. Fragments about Scotch national matters and family-names are read with interest by ScotoAustralians, and in many a Canadian log-house the exile from Lochaber has his youth renewed by the matter in the Celtic Magazine. I know that many are very sensitive about remarks made on the spelling of their names. I cheerfully take the risk I have never observed the name connected with Ireland. “Riabhach” might try to discover in what localities in Scotland the name is found, and put the same on record My own district is the triangle formed by Dunkeld, the parish of Caputh, and the town of Perth. There are some instances in Perth and at Birnam, but the name is rather rare.

Devonport, Devon.

THOMAS STRATTON, M.D.