inst one of the candidates,
the damaging fact that one of his forefathers had deliberately committed
one of the gross acts of barbarism which I have already specified, in
the needless destruction, in a distant part of Scotland, of one of the
smallest but most interesting of Scottish antiquarian relics; and the
voters at the polling-booths showed that they deemed a family, however
rich and estimable, unfit to be intrusted with the parliamentary
guardianship of the county, which had outraged public feeling by
wantonly pulling down one of the oldest stone memorials in the kingdom.

* * * * *

In the name of this Society, and in the name of my fellow-countrymen
generally, I here solemnly protest against the perpetration of any more
acts of useless and churlish Vandalism, in the needless destruction and
removal of our Scottish antiquarian remains. The hearts of all leal
Scotsmen, overflowing as they do with a love of their native land, must
ever deplore the unnecessary demolition of all such early relics and
monuments as can in any degree contribute to the recovery and
restoration of the past history of our country and of our ancestors.
These ancient relics and monuments are truly, in one strong sense,
national property; for historically they belong to Scotland and to
Scotsmen in general, more than they belong to the individual proprietors
upon whose ground they accidentally happen to be placed. There is an Act
of Parliament against the wilful defacing and demolition of public
monuments; and, perhaps the Kilkenny Archaeological Association were
right when they threatened to indite with the penalties of
"misdemeanour" under that statute, any person who should wantonly and
needlessly destroy the old monumental and architectural relics of his
country. Many of these relics might have brought only a small price
indeed in the money-market, while yet they were of a national and
historical value which it would be difficult to estimate. For, when once
swept away, their full replacement is impossible. They cannot be
purchased back with gold. Their deliberate and ruthless annihilation is,
in truth, so far the annihilation of the ancient records of the kingdom.
If any member of any ancient family among us needlessly destroyed some
of the olden records of that one family, how bitterly, and how justly
too, would he be denounced and despised by its members? But assuredly
antiquarian monuments, as the olden r