Perthshire in bygone days

PEETHSHIBE IN BYGONE DAYS.
INTEODUCTION.
One of the primary objects of these essays is to aid in the
promotion of a better understanding between the various
classes of which society is made up ; not by subtle arguments
or recondite theories, but simply by laying before the reader
a few examples of healthy, well-conditioned life, in every
section of the community. There are, no doubt, many men
in Perthshire who have enjoyed much better opportunities
of estimating the character of its more aristocratic population
than I can possibly have had ; but that is only one of
three constituents. A knowledge of the middle and lower
orders is every whit as vital to the just gauging of a people
as is that of their more lofty neighbours ; and half-a-century
of active connection with all and each of the three will, I
natter myself, be sufficient for all that is here pretended to.
Ebenezer Elliot asks — " What is the use of the Lords ?"
and Mr. Brougham says they are "the barriers set up
against improvement." These are mere words of exas-
peration, and little to be regarded. Instead of railing at the
good fortune of those whom the accident of birth, or the
greater cunning of head or hand, has raised above us in the
ever-varying scale of social life, I have chosen the more
congenial task of attempting to raise the appreciative feeling
of my plebeian fellow-citizens to a juster estimate of the true
gentleman's character, in whatever rank of life he is found ;
to tell him that pride of rank is a rare vice compared to the
pride that desires it, and that more of it is to be found in the
cranium of a half-pay Lieutenant than in those of ten Peers
of Parliament.
In my early days, the aristocracy was banned, not from
the knowledge of deeds that could be brought home to it as
a class, but as a foregone conclusion. Happily, from causes
which it is no part of my adopted vocation to enquire into,
things have changed, and that sovereign class called coaxingly
"The People," which has been trained to think itself ill-used,