Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: from this date to the end of the century, that is, during the following two-and-twenty years, a great deal had been done in dividing several farms into good- sized separate possessions, and in clearing them of a scattered surplus population, which was transplanted where their labour would be available for agricul- Habits of the ture and for fishing. The Duke had then also tried s ermen en Q encourage the fisheries, by keeping men in his own employment; but this was a failure, as the men, being independent of success, were idle and drunken. The reporter, wishing to go out in a boat to try the fishing, had found the Duke’s fishermen so drunk that they could not take him. I mention this circumstance, which occurred now more than a century ago, because it enables me to record the fact of a signal change for the better in the habits of the people. The fishermen of Tyree are now as sober as they are industrious. Indeed, I question whether there is any part of the Highlands where drunkenness is less common?a result to which I hope and believe that I have contributed something in never having granted a site for any public-house to be established on the Island. Improving Leases In the Leases given by the Duke, from 1776 on- l'1? wards, I find that the erection of houses, and of march fences in the form of dikes, was made an obligation on the tenants themselves, and that this kind of improvement was therefore done under specific agreement that it was to be held as done for valuable consideration received in the Lease, and in the moderate rent offered and accepted. These Leases are farther remarkable for the proof they afford, if, indeed, any proof were needed, that it was solely by the influence chapter{Section 4and authority of the proprietor that various old bar: barons habits of…
