Scotch Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 38, 11 January 1889, Page 2

Scotch Notes.

Mb. John Sinclair M.P.for Ayr Burghe, speaking the other day at a meeting of the Scotch Liberal Association, in Glasgow, «draeatod the bringing of the liish Home Rule movement io a successful termination before the Scetch question was energetically and «• clm*ively undertaken. Any other course he tald would be aB unwise r^ b^rrn,oSon u o/s^rr o^tr. s i^ majority.

The 'probability of popular traditions has received another Srmed on the outside, but with some attempt atdecoration.

Th« Princess Louise has undertaken at her own cost the restoramama the matter .

Scotch patriots, have been gratified h, the P'^i^jg ?n«ad of tbe 13& cttur,, .nUo be tbe,efore .port™. It bM no., botever! been Meertainen ihtt tb= otn.menls were »dded by Kinj K.?Sto y tb? Abbey 0»,g,« Stirling, where it. noble o-ne.'. monument stands.

The Crofter's Commission at Stornoway continues to elicit fad stories of suffering and injustice. Tbe statement just made on tha when there wa9 not In inch of arable land witbin its boundaries, or T house erected there. All th • improvements were those of their own ? making. U was sutcd .hit the rtiital of Lochs, which had in

1793 been £618, now amounted to £4,651, and not one penny of the landlord's had been spent in any shape on the land. Lady Matheson, of whose benevolence so mucb has been reported, had not been able to do anything for these tenants. The state of things revealed was to bad, in short, tbat Sheriff Brand, oue of the Commissioner!, was provoked to comment severely on it. "I suppose," he said, "the plain English of it is, so long as the estate goc the rent it did not oftie bow matters were." This, of course, met with a denial from Lady Matbeson's counsel, but the faces remain to spaak for them•lives.

A " sodden and awful appearance " was made the other day in tbe Established church at Wnitt-inch. It happened that the Bey. Mr. Johnson was reading a document appointed by the General Assembly to be read in celebration of the 200 th anniversary of the landing of King William of Orange, and, taking advantage of tbe •hining hour, the wormy divine began to deliver a running commentary, in which Ibe Romish tendencies shown by Mr. Gladstone were pointed out, as well as the manner in which the Irish party were making a tool of him in Parliament. But up incontinently Muted a young lady of the congregation, and recalled the minister to the fact tbat he was there to preach the Gospel, and not to deliver ft political address. In vain he tried to hold bis own. The damsel proved the better logician and expounder of tbe two, aad obliged Aim to return to his religious discourse. It would be difficult to find ft more spirited example of the traditional part played by ffrot-Jea* fwi Mt remontre a ton curi. But in this instance Gros-Jean had in every sense the best of the argument. Tbe rev. minister has since tried to recover his position in an explanation written to the Press, but be is not generally accredited with any striking success.

The Glasgow Exhibition, which was closed on November 10, has molted in a brilliant success, and leaves a surplus of £40,000 over •ad above all expenses. Tbe city is especially proud that tbe *isi tors' lilt, which numbers close upon six million attendances, beats tbat of tbe Manchester Exhibition by a million,

A shocking case of baby-farming has occurred in Stockbridge Bear Edinburgh. Two infants, taken in successively to obtain the •toney paid for their nursing, bare been each suffocated in a most horribly fierce and cold-blooded manner, with her own naked hands, by the wretched woman to whom they were entrusted . The discovery of the body of the first poor little victim, by some boys, who, finding it tightly wrapped and fastened in a piece of oilskin, proceeded to play football with it, led to tbe detection of the crimes.

Irish manufactures have come to the front in a remarkable way this year. Those sent on the occasion of the Pope's Jubilee to the Vatican exhibition have obtained several prizes. The needle-work, moreover, shown at Glasgow was so highly approved of that it has been purchased by some of tbe city firms. Apparently, therefore, all tbat the lazy, unenterprising, population in question need, is sufficient scope for the industry and skill which they seem, nevertheless, abundantly to possess.

Lord Lylton in his address just delivered, as rector of the University, to tbe students at Glasgow, made a strange admission to come from a strong partisan and supporter of tbe Tory Government. His Lordship asserted that there is, to use his own words, no sort of propriety in having political offenders tried like common criminals. But this was, in his high official capacity, to pronounce a censure upon the Tory Government, and Mr Hal four in particular, who have been, and still continue, persistently engaged in not only trying but punishing like common criminals those political offenders in Ireland who transgress their arbitrary decrees and commit there the political crimes especially create! by unjust laws. Lord Lytton has told his friends a truth that it would bebove them to take to heart, and bring into action. But probably he like them, and they like him, are in this particular case so afflicted with obliquity of vision tbat they are unable to see how closely the truth in question applies to them. — None so blird as they who will not Bee.

The Crofters' Commission iB still doing good woTk in Orkney. Tbe last decisions given there, bave resulted in lowering tbe rents on Mr. Traill's Westray and Papa Westray estates by 46$ per cent, with A wiping out of 74 per cent of arrears. Hard times these for tbe landlord when his tenant's purse-strings are tied against bis thievish hand. Is not land-tbief a most justly and happily invented name? It is fully justified by legal decisions.