Note 6 — NEWS FROM THE FARM.[5]

The following excerpts from the reports of the clergy of Morayshire indicate how entirely they anticipated the views of Mr Stuart, and how much they were alive to the necessity of such a movement as that which Mr Stuart has been instrumental in originating. “I would add,” writes one clergyman, “that as the moral condition of frail beings such as we are is often powerfully affected by circumstances of comparatively trifling amount, if masters attended a little to the physical comforts of their servants, by providing them with fire and light, &c., (when they live in bothies), by means of a female servant, having their room in readiness when they leave off work, instead of allowing them to go to a bothy, cold and comfortless, they would be less induced to resort to ardent spirits, or to wander from home in search of company and comfort.” Another reverend respondent says: “The greatest desideratum in respect of this class, and which would tend more than any other temporal means to their improvement, is the adoption by the landed proprietors and by agricultural societies of the plan of rewarding servants of long-established good character, by affording them facilities for becoming occupiers of small farms themselves.”