f rightly bearing their lot or
raising themselves in the scale of existence.

3. A peculiar portion of the population, consisting chiefly of
solitary females unfit for active employment, and yet not sufficiently
disabled to be objects of parochial aid, will require a humane and
indulgent consideration. The Committees hitherto seem to have advanced
them little stores of wool and flax, to enable them to give some
return for their support; and a great deal of meritorious exertion has
in this way been fostered. We presume that at least to a certain
extent this humane system may be continued.

4. Another obvious and incalculable boon will be conferred on the
country, if we can bridge over the chasm that has hitherto divided the
Highlands and Islands from the labour markets of the south. It was
indeed a strange anomaly, that strong men should be lying down to die
in the Isles, or even on the mainland of Scotland, and that within two
or three hundred miles of their homes, and on Scottish soil, there
should be a want of labourers, and the easy means of earning ample
wages. This appears to us one of the great objects to be now
consulted, and to which the attention of the Board has already been
anxiously directed: to remove the obstacles that have existed to a
free intercourse between different parts of the country, and more
particularly between the Saxon and Celtic districts. There are many
causes that combine to fix a Highlander to his home, even in the midst
of misery. Among these are ignorance of better things, and that
strangeness and helplessness, produced by a change of scene, which
half-civilised men are apt to feel with almost the timidity of
children. The diversity of the Highland and the Lowland tongue is
another impediment, but one which is daily disappearing, and is never
so likely to vanish as under the pressure of necessity. The very
virtues of the Highland character contribute to keep them where they
are, and are assisted in doing so by some of those defects which are
akin to their good qualities. Their patient endurance of cold and
privation cooperates with the congenial tendency towards indolence, to
fix them in a state of miserable inaction, rather than submit to the
active exertion that would increase their comforts. Every thing will
now combine to overcome these difficulties; the _res angusta domi_
will now be vividly felt, if it can ever be felt at all; while
fortunately both the benevolence and the necess