SCOTLAND.
The Scotsman has the following just remarks on the exclusion of Scotland from Mr. Gladstone's Refreshment Houses and Wine Licences Bill :—
" Of all the Three Kingdoms, it is Scotland which, by the admission of all parties, is most afflicted with the two evils proposed to be dealt with by this bill. Nowhere has the • shebeen ' system, carried on chiefly under the guise of refreshment rooms,' attained such growth as in Scotland under re- cent legislation ;—whilst the offence is scarcely ever heard of in England, it forms a daily and chief feature in the proceedings of our Police Courts. That we Scotch are much more than our English neighbours addicted to the use and abuse of the strongest intoxicants, is a fact which very various parties among ourselves have, for equally various reasons, been fond of pro- alai- ing ; and some, even of the most extreme of the denunciators have declared that their chief hope of remedy lay in the introduction of the use of light wines. Yet here is a bill seeking to remedy the two very evils in which we are admittedly sinners above our fellow-subjects, and the last clause of it runs thus—' This Act shall not extend to Scotland.' " Arrangements are in progress for the delivery in Edinburgh of a series of lectures on the "Great Social Evil." An address to young men, on .the subject, was given in the Queen Street Hall on Saturday night.
The Presbytery of Weem met in Weem church on the 21st instant, when the case of libel for adultery against the Reverend Duncan Dewar, minister of the parish of Dull, was before them. The proof of the libellers had been brought to a close last month, after a protracted investigation, and we un- derstand the evidence, pro and con, extends to somewhere about 150 closely- printed quarto pages. The case having for a long time excited great inte- rest in the district, and The proof having been throughout conducted with closed doors, the audience from Aberfeldy and Weem was very large. The Presbytery are expected to deliver judgment on Wednesday, the 4th of April next.—Scotsman.
Mr. Robert Martin, a vinegar dealer, was fined at the Justice of the Peace Court, Edinburgh, on Monday, the sum of 3700/. for breach of the Excise laws. Martin had carried on the business of a distiller without a proper certificate. A private and concealed still, and sixteen private casks con- taining liquid for distillation, were amongst his illegal possessions. The statute enacts that, for each of the sixteen casks, the penalty of 200., should be paid.
Agnes Hamilton, a miserly old woman, who rented a small shop, as a grocer, in the Commercial Road, Glasgow, has just died at the age of eighty- one. She has bequeathed her savings, amounting to 23,000/., in annuities of 4/. to destitute old people of good moral character, who have attained the age of sixty, are natives of the Gorbals parish of Glasgow, and have lived there thirty years.
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