Various

“ The innkeeper, foaming with rage and disappointment, roared out 'Clipsides ye,' and administered a blow to Macdonald's leg that caused him to halt for an instant. That halt was fatal. I darted past and hoisted the ball to Paterson, who seized it and carried it easily through the now scattered ranks of our opponents. Once out into the open field it was a direct chase. Paterson had better wind than any man on the field, and having got so far ahead he made the most of his advantage. Macdonald pursued him hotly. ”

“ In the thick of the strife there was no use swinging clubs in the air. We could only push and thrust, and pull the ball out with the crook. In a race we struck as we ran, giving short rapid strokes; and when a player delivered a sweeping blow, he had generally space for the swing of his club. I remember a boy getting his face laid open by an awkward fellow; but such an occurrence was rare among experienced players. We could handle our clubs as you handle your guns—scientifically. There are not usually many casualties at a shooting match—eh Bill?"
"But, grandfather, what came of Paterson?" ”

“ If there is no vital principle, or specialty in a contract between landlord and tenant in regard to an heritable subject, such as an arable farm, that necessarily takes it out of the list of ordinary contracts, no Government would seriously entertain or assist the passing of a measure for imposing fetters upon one of the parties to that contract, exceptional legislation to obtain an advantage for the lessee to the detriment of the lessor. ”

“ We have no difficulty therefore in saying that the Game Laws do not press with undue severity upon the labouring classes in the Highlands, by whom, on the whole, poaching is now an offence rarely committed; and we believe that in saying so we express the opinion of those classes themselves. Any complaints that have been made have not proceeded from them but from third parties who have endeavoured to range themselves as pretended friends to compass their own ends. There is just one direction in which we might hint that improvement is possible. ”

“ Paterson, of course, was our mainstay; and besides him, we had an innkeeper, as stout and round as one of his own barrels, who, singular to say, was a capital shinty player. Our opponents had the assistance of an enthusiastic schoolmaster, who, even in those days, encouraged sports among his pupils, in spite of the remonstrances of some of the wiseacres. Our clubs were carefully selected. Some preferred a sharp square crook, some a round one, just as they happened to excel in hitting or 'birling'—that is, in getting the ball within the bend, and running it along upon the ground. ”

“ In other words, in an age when the cry is for freedom from all special advantages to owners of land, such as hypothec and entail, so as to place it on an open footing with all other subjects, it would be strange, indeed, were exceptional legislation required for the lessees of land to give them the special advantages which the spirit of the age denied to their landlords. ”

“ No, he didn't. Women are always contrary. Maggie married the 'lazy loon' Jock; he made the most of his good fortune in getting the ring, and the marriage was long cited as a proof of the unfailing certainty of the oracle."
"Grandfather," cried Henry, "have you made us the totum? Didn't you used to play the totum on New Year's Day?"
"That we did boy" said Mr Chisholm. "The youngsters thought it a capital game, and the elders did not refuse to join in it. Yes, Harry, I made you the totum, and by-and-bye we shall have a game." ”

“ The bringing forward of the game question has been merely the trotting out of a stalking horse. There were no complaints of game or game laws in the good old times when the rents were low. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were rejoiced to furnish the laird with a good day's sport, in the fruits of which they generally participated. Game must have done as much harm then as now, but farmers in those days did not feel pushed to meet the rent day. They could live on a smaller income; they did not seek or require the same luxuries, and had less outlay in labour. ”

“ The man who takes his own agricultural produce and converts it into a wholesome and refreshing beverage for his own domestic use is liable to a very much heavier penalty than he who steps on to his neighbour's property and puts out his hands to take what he has neither laboured for nor purchased. ”

“ In the one case we can imagine an honest industrious labourer, actuated only by a desire for the comfort of himself and his family, manufacturing his own goods into nourishing and sustaining ale, heavily punished for his untaxed enjoyment of the bounties of Providence; whereas, in the other case, the poacher, as a rule, is a person with a turn for idleness, an aversion to all honest and steady labour, and a taste for luxurious indulgences above his means, who persists in illegally invading another's property in the pursuit and seizure of its produce. ”

“ At that time shinty was a universal winter game, and greatly we prided ourselves on our smartness at the sport. And it was a sport that required a great deal of smartness, activity, strength, presence of mind, and a quick sure eye. Many a moonlight night did the lads contend for the honour of hailing the ball. On this particular day there was to be a match between two districts [Pg 107] —twenty men a-side, and the stake £5 and a gallon of whisky. Our leader was a carpenter, named Paterson, who was the hero of many a keenly contested shinty match. ”

“ No sooner did the death of a tenant take place than the event was announced to the laird of the soil. The Land-Stewart, or ground-officer, incurred the displeasure of his master unless that announcement were made no later than three days after it had occurred. Immediately after the deceased farmer had been consigned to the grave, the disconsolate widow, if he had left one, was waited upon by a messenger from the landlord, to deliver up to him the best horse on the farm, such being reckoned then the legal property of the owner of the soil. ”

“ The opportunity is therefore not an unfavourable one for a calm survey of the situation.
It is a well-known principle in jurisprudence that a contract between two parties capable of contracting in respect to a subject matter known to both, if adhered to by either, is inviolably binding; and with the free action of this principle as between parties, except in a matter of life and death, the legislature always has had, and we confidently believe, always will have a delicacy in interfering. ”

“ As deer-stalking and grouse shooting, to be effective, require day-light, and pheasant breeding is the exception not the rule in the north, cases of night poaching, the worst and most severely punishable, are of unfrequent occurrence, while fines of two pounds, the highest that can be inflicted for day poaching, in the most aggravated cases, is not heavy enough even when coupled with costs to make habitual and systematic poaching an altogether unprofitable occupation. ”

“ Are we to have landlord right levelled down while tenant right is to be levelled up? We have yet to see it. It cannot, however, in fairness be denied that there are certain circumstances in which the tenants' third complaint above-mentioned is just and reasonable. While a tenant is strictly tied down under the conditions of his lease to a certain rotation of cropping, and various other regulations regarding his use of the land, the proprietor is left practically unfettered as to the extent of increase of game that he may allow to take place. ”

“ The damage done by game on agricultural farms in the Highlands is altogether inconsiderable in affecting the agricultural prosperity of the country. Our opinion is that if the truth were fairly told farmers would confess that where the shoe pinches is in the pressure of high rents caused by their own mutual competitions for farms, rather than the trifling damage done by game. ”

“ He knew that the evil of depopulation had been accomplished in the Highlands, not by the introduction of deer, but of sheep on a large scale by Lowland farmers before ever deer forests had come to be considered a source of revenue. ”

“ The only bribe they promised allies was the offer of mutton a twentieth of a penny per pound cheaper, and Highlanders refused to be bought over at that price, especially as its payment was more than doubtful. The deer forest agitation has died a natural death. Peace to its ashes.
We have hitherto confined ourselves to discussing the so-called disadvantages of the Game Laws: we have yet to consider the facts on the other side of the question, by which those disadvantages are altogether overbalanced. ”

“ All wrongs have their remedies; but the remedy in such a case is not the giving an inalienable right to ground game to the tenant, as that would amount to a wronging of the landlord, who might wish to reserve such right at any cost of compensation to the tenant for damage really inflicted. What is desirable is, that such damage should be assessable, and the value thereof recoverable with the least possible trouble and expense to the tenant. ”

“ In entering upon the consideration of adverse criticisms, we find that they are easily resolved into two classes:—First, there are those as to what opponents term the unnecessary severity and injurious influence of the Game Laws upon poachers; and secondly, the injury indirectly effected by them upon tenant-farmers, agricultural and pastoral.
Sympathy for the poacher is frequently proclaimed by anti-game law agitators. They will tell you that the disposition to pursue game is inherent in human nature ”

“ On large and extensive farms the demand was submitted to without much complaint, by the widow, children, or heirs of the deceased, but it pressed hard upon the occupiers of small tenements of land, and particularly so on helpless widows. But whoever refused, or attempted to evade this heartless enactment, forfeited every right to their farms in future, and became liable to have all their goods and chattels confiscated to the laird. It frequently happened that a poor farmer had but one horse, yet even this circumstance did not mitigate the cruelty of the practice ”

“ In Ireland as in some other countries (perhaps we may say with some degree of truth in our own Highlands of Scotland) the simple uneducated peasants are, in the law courts, treated with the greatest display of harshness because they cannot give evidence in the English tongue. ”

“ If, after whirling, the totum falls with the letter "A" uppermost, all the stakes become the prize of the player; if "T" is the uppermost letter he only takes one; if "N" appears he gets nothing at all; while "D" obliges him to contri [Pg 111] bute a pin from his private stock to the heap in the centre. Every whirl comes to be watched with as much eagerness as if a fortune depended on the result.
The nature of the game having been made sufficiently plain, Mr Chisholm leads off with a whirl which sends the totum spinning round so fast as to be almost invisible ”

“ It is not our intention, however, to emulate Sir Roger de Coverley, whose explanations of the Game Acts used to gain great applause at quarter sessions, by entering upon a minute analysis of them here. We mean to confine ourselves simply to a critical examination of the various attacks to which they have been subjected, and an endeavour to make a brief and impartial survey of their effect on the prosperity of the Highlands. ”

“ But according to Professor Geikie's latest survey, the Clyde must have been about 25 feet higher in the time of the Romans than it now is—and Professor Geikie, we presume, is an authority on such subjects, who may be quoted along with Hugh Miller and Smith of Jordanhill:—therefore the whole of that strath, and the strath on the opposite side, from Renfrew to Paisley, on this assumption, must have been submerged at the same time; and there could be no dwelling-place for human beings—neither local habitation nor a name—within the entire compass of that now fertile and populous region. ”

“ The fact remains, that in the Highlands there are many whose only language is Gaelic, and if their Saxon rulers have a desire to administer the law justly they must learn to deal more gently with such as are ignorant of the English language. ”