Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 7, 1899

62
THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE
HIGHLANDS SINCE 1800.
By A. J. Beaton, F.S.A. Scot., F.G.S.E.
(Continued from jmge 39).
VII. — Domestic Life.
^fgljOMESTIC life in the Highlands may be
VKf) divided into three classes — the Lairds,
==!^ large Farmers, and Crofters. The Land
Lords have large and elegant castles or man-
sions ; and the majority of them live in luxury
and maintain large and expensive establishments.
The extraordinary demand for land, for agricul-
tural and sporting purposes, caused a correspond-
ing increase in the value of this class of property,
but recent depression of trade has considerably
reduced the rentals of several large estates,
resulting in the cutting down of expenditure,
and this will be a loss very severely felt by
many poor workmen who were wholly dependant
on the employment they constantly obtained
about the " Big Hoose." Up to the middle of
this century large and middle class tenantry
were ill accommodated; but now few indeed there
are who have not handsome and commodious
dwelling houses and offices. The crofters and
cottars on the other hand, we may safely assume,
are still in some places not one whit better than
they were a hundred years ago. Their habita-
tions are but miserable hovels, in many cases
the walls being built of turf, with a few cabers,
thatched with heather, for a roof; while an
opening in the roof serves the two-fold purpose
of allowing the peat reek to escape and admitting
a dim light — for in many cases there are no
windows. The floors are formed of clay beaten
down to a hard surface, which in dry weather
serves the purpose very efficiently, but in wet
weather forms into a slushy puddle. I am now
referring more particularly to the dwellings
in some parts of the Western Isles — on
the mainland considerable improvements have
been effected on many estates within the last
ten to twenty years — on the dwellings of both
crofters and cottars.* Miss Gordon Gumming
in her interesting work " /« i/ie Ifebiides," pub-
lished in 1883, graphically describes a South
Uist crofter's " Home Sweet Home," as she
calls it, in the following words : — "Bight across
the island the road is built upon a narrow stone
causeway, which is carried in a straight line
over moor and moss, bog and loch, and which
grows worse and worse year by year. Such
miseraljle human beings as have been compelled
to settle in this dreary district, liaving been
evicted from comparatively good crofts, are
probably poorer and more wretched — ^ their
hovels more squalid, their filth more unavoid-
able, than any others in the isles — the huts
clustering together in the middle of the sodden
morass, from which are dug the damp turfs
which form both walls and roof, and through
these the rain oozes, falling with dull drip upon
the earthen floor, ' where the hulf-naked children
crawl about among the puddles, which form
even around the hearth — if such a word may be
used to describe a mere hollow in the floor,
where the sodden peats smoulder as though
they had no energy to burn. Outside of each
threshold lie black quag-
mires crossed by stepping
stones — drainage being
apparently deemed imposs-
ible. Yet with all this
abundance of misplaced
muddy water, some of the
townships have to com-
plain of the difficulty of
procuring a supply of pure
water, that which has
drained through the peat
moss being altogether un-
fit for drinking or cooking.
" Small wonder that the
children born and reared
in such surroundings
should be puny and sickly,
and their elders listless
A HIGHLAND COT.
* Since the passing of the
Crofter Act in many town-
ships substantial houses
have|been erected by the
crofters.