SCOTLAND.
The Commissioners for General Purposes under the Property and In- come-tax Act, for the Lower Ward of Lanarkshire, had under considers tion, at their meeting on Thursday, several appeals by parties against assessments for profits derived from buying and selling railway shares and scrip. The Commissioners unanimously refused the appeals, and con- firmed the assessment.—Glasgow Courier.
The John o'Groat's Journal publishes a letter from Lerwick announcing the existence of great distress in the Shetland Islands-
" Want and misery are now written on many a face, where till now such had not been seen; and, if not promptly relieved in some way or other, there is great reason to fear that during the summer, and before the crops can come on so far as to be made available, even in a half-ripe state, for the pressing wants of the population, cases of death from actual starvation will be neither few nor rare. During the years 1837, 1838, 1839—well termed the bad years'—the want of food through these islands was not greater than it is at the present time. At this moment individuals are known to the writer of this who have not tasted bread for a whole week; and others who have neither tasted bread nor meal in any shape for periods varying from ten to fifteen days, who, when they had scraped together the sum necessary, had to take their bags under their arms and to travel distances of from six to eighteen miles—Zetland miles too—before they could procure the small quantity of meal which they were able to purchase, at a most exorbitant price. The breakfast of shell-fish has to be gathered in the morning, at the sea- side, among the rocks, before the cravings of hunger can be satisfied; then the next meal, consisting of fish, with perhaps a few potatoes, and if they have a little meal, fedi and- bread, or else ff.sh and potatoes again, before going to bed, comprises all that they can afford; fish and potatoes being the chief, almost the only articles of diet, and bread being used more like a luxury than as the staple article of food. These are not cases of rare occurrence."
Two Englishmen, Mr. Ilbery and Mr. Howell, have been killed on the Clyde, near Greenock, by a steamer running down a boat in which they were seated in the evening smoking cigars. The boat was cut in two; and the deceased were much lacerated; apparently stunned, and thus prevented from making any effort to escape death by drowning. One was employed in the Railway-office at Gree neck, and the other was superintending the formation of a new dock at the same place. The steam-vessel which caused the disaster, a new one, was taking a trial trip, and at the time of the collision was going at a great speed.
Previous page
