Note 79 — Chapter IX · EXCURSION ROUND THE STRAITS.

A lady, writing from the north of Scotland, thus speaks of the double invasion there of bonnets and poor:—“Bonnets have been the destruction of the Caithness servants: what they spend on these, and flowers and ribands (instead of the linsey-wolsey petticoat, cotton jacket, and snood), would keep their parents in meal for months; but, of course, now that there is a ‘legal assessment,’ what need they care or “scrimp” themselves, only to spare the parish.”—“She (an old woman of ninety-two) told me, that formerly there was more love among neighbours than now among brothers.”