THE SUTHERLAND CLEARANCES.
pro sa. EDITOR or nog “Sesc-rrro.".] SIR,—Sir Hugh Shaw Stewart (Spectator, February 21st) is unfortunate in selecting Dr. John Maeculloch as an authority on Highland destitution in the first part of the nineteenth century, since the worthy doctor gave great offence to the people in the North of Scotland by saying : "Were I the Dey of Algiers, or a Highland laird, I would keep an officer of health with power to wash Mr. and Mrs. Maclarty and all their family by force, or to fumigate them like rats, and in default of ultimate reformation to barn them out." The result of this forcible writing was that, although the Royal Society possesses a portrait in oils of Macculloch, and the Geological Society possesses a marble bust of this would-be sanitary reformer, the only portrait of Macculloch that reached the Highlands was by no means of a compli- mentary description. Moreover, the vehement indignation of the Celts against Maceulloch was also expressed in print by Dr. John Brown in a vituperative book, which was also in every Highland farmer's library. And now I read in a recent issue of the Daily Chronicle that "it is proposed to mark the centenary of the Sutherland clearances of 1814 by a demonstration in the Strath of Kildonan in the summer of this year." This, however, will serve no good end. It would be better for these fervent Radicals to pay attention to the neglected condition of the Highland churchyards, since "the e'ening brings a' hame" is an old Scottish proverb which suggests that the evening of life, or the approach of death, should soften all our political and religious differences—I am,
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