SCOTLAND.
Mr. Fox Maule was elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University on Tuesday, by a majority in all the " nations "; his opponent being the Marquis of Bute. Mr. Maule was supported by the Nonintrusionists, the Marquis by the Moderates.
The Paisley Advertiser of Saturday reports a meeting of the noble- men, Commissioners of Supply, Justices of the Peace, and Magistrates of towns of the county of Renfrew, in the County Hall, on the previous 'hursday, to consider the distressed condition of the unemployed poor, and the best means of relief. Mr. Patrick Maxwell Stewart, M.P., Vice-Lieutenant, was called to the chair. Sheriff Campbell read a report from a committee appointed at a former meeting-
" Your committee report, as the result of their consideration of the subject remitted to them by the general meeting of the 25th October, that they are convinced of the continued existence of much distress in Paisley among the manufacturing and labouring classes for want of employment. Of the manu- facturing population dependent upon public charity, the number in the week ending on the 8th November current was 7,372 persons. Four weeks pre- vious, the number was 6,069; showing an increase of 1,303 destitute persons in one month.
"The expense of their subsistence for the last week (that subsistence being given almost exclusively in provisions) amounted to 3331. Be. 3d.; and the London Manufacturing Committee, which had been induced to remit 250/. for some weeks past to assist in defraying the weekly expense, have reduced their grant for last week to 2001., leaving to the Relief Committee of Paisley- to procure funds to meet the surplus expenditure by local contributions. But the Paisley Committee cannot command local contributions ; and such is the exhausted condition to which Paisley has been reduced, that they cannot ex- pect to obtain in that town the necessary amount, even were the London Com- mittee's weekly remittance to be continued at 250/. The general anticipation is, that the amount and severity of the destitution will increase during the winter, and that there is no prospect of a revival of trade and employment till the return of spring.
"Under the pressure of these circumstances, and also of distress to a con- siderable extent being prevalent in the town of Greenock, and in the villages of Johnstone, Pollockshaws, and other places in the county, your C3mmittee have agreed in the opinion, that it is again incumbent on the landed gentlemen and proprietors generally throughout the county to come forward in aid of the destitute; and they have further agreed to recommend that the means of relief should be obtained by a voluntary assessment upon the real rents of all de- scriptions of fixed property. "Your Committee are further of opinion, that other measures of relief, though not so immediate in their operation, call for the attention of the general meeting,—namely, a well-adjusted system for encouraging emigration to our own Colonies, and the revision and amendment of our Poor-laws ; and your Com- mittee recommend that an application be made to Government for the pur- pose of obtaining these two objects." Provost Bain of Greenock made a statement of the condition of the unemployed poor in that town— He stated the number of unemployed and dependents at above 5,000, while many others were disposing of their effects rather than go on the supply. Their expenditure was 751., though the supply was to each individual less than a penny a day. When able, they had sent 560/. to Paisley since January last ; but now they were constrained to seek relief. On the whole, since March last, they had collected 3,560/., and contemplated raising 1,500/. more by voluntary assessment ; but even this would not afford the necessary relief. They had re- ceived 500/. from Edinburgh. Owing to the great exertions made and to be made in Greenock, he did not think they could give any assistance to the county-fund. He did not see how they could get over the winter-months without aid from Government."
The chairman put a resolution that the sum of 1,500/. should be raised by voluntary assessment. Mr. Robert Wallace, M.P., proposed a series of resolutions recommending application for a grant of money and clothing-stores from Government. He contended that it would soon become necessary for the landed interest to revise the state of the Currency and the Corn-laws, or they themselves would shortly suffer. He mentioned a suggestion which had been made to him, that Govern- ment should give the people of Paisley some of their ships to build. Lord Kelburne said, he certainly by no means despaired of seeing be- fore long a well-arranged system of emigration ; but in the mean time, aso sach system would be beneficial ; and he believed that, bad as the condition of the people is in the country and in towns, ninety-nine out of a hundred of those people who emigrated found themselves far worse off than they were here (!) The chairman made some reply to this ob- servation— With regard to the result of emigration, the abuse of a thing was no argu- ment against its use. Wherever they found disastrous results, depend upon it there has been some vicious principle at work. But what the Committee wanted was, what lies never yet existed in the country, a relief for our nation, in establishing a well-regulated, common-sense, open system of emigration, by which people who leave these shores will see with their open eyes, and give judgment, that they are going to a place where they can obtain employment and comparative independence. This was the system ; and in justice to the Committee, he thought that if such a system could be established, now was the time to carry it into effect. To many of the unemployed their former labour may return, and they might yet be happy; but the greater proportion, from a change of circumstances in this country and in the world at large_ their occupation was gone for ever. These were the persons to whom the Colonies were pointed out. The Colonies were languishing for want of labour. and were this county, along with other counties, to recommend emigration, it would do great good. A discussion of considerable length arose on the question, whether the proposed voluntary assessment should be 1,5001. or 3,000/. Mr. P. M. Stewart moved, and Lord Kelburne seconded, the following resolu- tion— " That in order to meet the immediate necessities of the unemployed and destitute population of the county of Renfrew, the sum of 3,0001. be raised by assessment, rateably and proportionally, on the whole fixed property of the county ; that a Committee be appointed to carry the foregoing resolutions into effect, to apply the money so raised, and also to consider and report upon the propriety of applying for power to carry the assessment into effect as to ar- rears; and the farther measures of relief, by a well-devised system of Colonial Emigration, and an amendment of the Scottish Poor-laws, contemplated in the report read to this meeting by Mr. Sheriff Campbell, as Convenor of the Com- mittee appointed on the 25th October." A second clause in the resolution named a numerous Committee to carry it into effect. It was carried ; and Mr. 'Wallace's resolutions were then put, and were also carried. A vote of thanks to the Chairman closed the proceedings.
The Edinburgh journals of this week announce the death of one who some twenty years ago was one of the features of Auld Reekie. Mr. John Robertson, though not a very old man, (only fifty-five) and though an active and influential citizen of Edinburgh till the day of his death, belonged properly to a period which has already gone by. Some forty years ago, while yet an apprentice, he learned to take a keen interest in the politics of the time, both national and local ; and when he com- menced business as a bookseller he plunged into the thickest of the strife. His little shop in the High Street of Edinburgh used to be called by the Tories of the day a "den of sedition "; and certainly the tone of [politics which predominated there was of a more tran- chant character than was to be found in the pages of the Edin- burgh Review : but all the Parliament House men who haunted it were not politicians of this stamp, and some of them could scarcely be called politicians at all. Among many who were often to be found there, we remember a now eminent economist, and the present President of the Scottish Academy. John Robertson's shop was of all places in Edinburgh the place where a stranger would have found the richest specimens of the abandon of Scotch shrewdness and Scotch humour. The shop of David Bridges was its only rival in this- respect; and with all kind regard for the memory of the gleg and gleesome individual, there was not the same pith in the gossip of David's sanctum. It was the energy, the singleness of purpose, the kindness of heart struggling with a fiery temperament, and perhaps a few peculiarities adding to rather than detracting from the charm of his real worth, that made the pa- triotic bookseller so attractive behind his counter—so delightful of an evening at Mrs. Ferguson's in the Lawnmarket. Mr. Robertson was one of those who about the year 1816 or 1817 commenced a struggle against the close system in the Town-Council, which was long the most prominent theme of local interest in Edinburgh. It may be said to have been this struggle which gave birth to the Scotsman newspaper. Mr. Robertson was one of its founders : and the naive and graphic accounts of the secret conclave of the Council, which he supplied to its columns, were among its most amusing articles and the most effective arrows dis- charged against the close system. Mr. Robertson's connexion with that journal and its termination were alike honourable to him, as a fearless man and a man who would not seek for victory by the slightest devia- tion from strict veracity. His party triumphed—that all the world knows ; but it will never be known beyond the limits of Edinburgh how much its local success was promoted by his unwearied and disin- terested exertions ; and it is not worth while to confer upon a few place-hunters the notoriety they would gain by its being known how they repaid him. The charitable institutions of Edinburgh lie under deep obligations to Mr. Robertson's active support. In his native city, his place will not be easily filled up : it will be long ere we look upon so perfect a specimen of the Edinburgh citizen in all the worth as in all the peculiarities of that character. To those peculiarities we have no scruple in alluding—they were insepa- rable from his virtues, and lent a higher zest to his shrewd and original remarks. He was the metal of which martyrs are made, cast in an Edinburgh mould. There was nothing of the fanatic about him, and yet in his sincerity, fearlessness, a high-wrought strain of enthusiasm, which could even court obloquy for the cause he loved—in his entire Scotchness—he has often reminded us of Scott's David Deans.
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