of their diet and healthiness of their climate, as to the inherent strength and durability of the Russian-Sclavonic race.

The reader has by this time observed that M. Kohl is peculiarly fond of backing his assertions by incontrovertible figures, and accordingly we generally find his quaint little calculations introduced at the close of some lively scene, like the painter's monogram at the corner of a picture. In this spirit he demonstrates that, reckoning the whole area of St. Petersburg, inclusive of the second stories of the houses (few have more than two), at 600,000,000 square feet, there remains for each of its 500,000 inhabitants—man, woman, and child—no less a space than 1200 square feet, or a square of 36 feet.

Speaking also of the great manual dexterity which characterises the commonest Russian, he proposes, by way of experiment, to take so many Russian peasants, and as many German, and give them each the contents of a glass-shop to pack up and transport to a distance, in order, from the mean difference of breakage, to give to a fraction (as Captain Jesse would say) the respective dexterity of either nation.

Either from his not recognising in them any national qualities, or from the conviction that rogues are peculiar to no country, M. Kohl has devoted no particular attention to the Chinovniks: nevertheless, one little fable among a few he translates from Kruilloff deservedly called the sop of Russia-excellently illustrates their system of magnifying trifles and overlooking essentials:

'A Chinovnik, who had been looking through a museum of natural history, was giving a friend an account of what he had seen-"Such wonderful things!" he exclaimed; "birds of the most exquisite colours -foreign butterflies-moths, gnats, and beetles of every possible colour-but so small! so small! you can hardly see them with the naked eye." "But what did you think of the great elephant and the enormous mammoth?" asked his friend. "Elephant! mammoth! why, bless my heart, I never observed them at all!"'-Ibid. p. 168.

If the thing were not a national impossibility, one would say that the sharpest arrow of this sarcasm was levelled at the highest head in the empire, who, though quick enough to detect a straw's-breadth error, too often lets the gaunt form of public corruption stalk past him unperceived. But the diadem of

Russia is a galling crown-who shall envy it him?

With this parting thrust at the Chinovniks we must draw to a close-an extent of forbearance which none, without having read M. Kohl's book, can appreciate.

ART.

ART. V.-1. An Account of the Improvements on the Estates of the Marquess of Stafford in the Counties of Stafford and Salop, and on the Estate of Sutherland; with Remarks. By James Loch, Esq. 8vo. London. 1820.

2. The New Statistical Account of Scotland. No. XXX. 8vo. Edinburgh and London. 1841.

3. Report from the Select Committee of Salmon Fisheries, Scotland; together with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and Index. 1836.

W

E resume, according to promise, a subject which, dry as it may seem in some of its details, is one of paramount importance, affecting most materially the general prosperity of the kingdom and the comfort of all classes.

The success of any scheme for enlarging the sphere of our fisheries must depend, as we observed, upon the steady demand for the article to be supplied, so as to secure the flow of skill and capital into the channels through which the supply is to be increased. And there is reason to believe that the demand for fish is becoming more general. During the past winter a very great portion of the food of the poorer classes of the metropolis was furnished from the sea. Sprats were never finer nor in greater abundance, and they were often sold in the streets at the rate of a halfpenny for as many as would fill a plate. Devonshire pilchards, cured dry, looking most invitingly plump and silvery, were to be seen in the shops ticketed four-pence a dozen.' Nor has the supply of other sorts been wanting. Haddocks, in particular, never were larger, better fed, nor more plentiful. In our early walks through the by-ways of this great modern Babel-for he who would study the annals of the poor with anything like success must go and see-we have not seldom during this last season observed really good fresh fish, especially plaice, skate, and soles -better than falls to the lot of those who are rash enough to order fish at some of the clubs-brought to very humble dwellings and there sold at very low prices; and few sights could have given us more satisfaction.

But in this paper we would beg the attention of our readers to the Scotch fisheries, to the union of agriculture with fishing, and to the removal of the people from the inland to the maritime districts, where circumstances make such removal necessary. This last experiment has been made on the northern estates of the Duke of Sutherland upon a great scale.

That the coast of Sutherland abounded with fish of different species, not only sufficient for the home consumption, but ready to yield a supply to any extent for more distant markets, or even

for

Sir

for exportation in a cured state, had long been known. Robert Gordon, in his History of the Earldom of Sutherland,' thus writes in 1630:

The countrey is fitter for pasturage and store than for cornes, by reason there is little manured land there. The principal commodities of Strathnaver are cattle and fishing, not only salmond (whereof they have great store), but also they have abundance of all other kynd of fishes in the ocean, that they apprehend great numbers of all sorts at their verie doores; yea, in the winter seasone, among the rocks, without much trouble, they take and apprehend every day so much fish onlie as will suffice them for the tyme, and doe care for no great provision or store.

.....If the inhabitants were industrious they might gane much by these fishes, but the people of that country are so far naturallie given to idleness, that they cannot applie themselves to labour, which they esteem a disparagement and derogation unto their gentilitie. There is no doubt but that country might be much bettered by laborious and painfull inhabitants.'

The candid manager and historian of the recent experiment states, that though these observations are applied by Sir Robert exclusively to the inhabitants of Strathnaver, they are equally true of the whole country, except that the people on the Moray Firth never made an exertion of any sort to avail themselves of those supplies which the ocean conveyed to their very thresholds. (Loch, p. 72.)

This disdain of labour, exquisitely pourtrayed in Rob Roy's dignified contempt for weavers and spinners, presented a formidable obstacle to those who felt that it was become a matter of necessity to bring the people to industrious habits. But let us take a glance at the theatre of the experiment.

The estate attached to the earldom of Sutherland (one of the oldest dignities in this empire) was supposed, at the time when the late Countess married Lord Gower, afterwards Marquis of Stafford, and finally created Duke of Sutherland, to comprise not less than 800,000 acres-a vast possession, but from which its owners had never derived more than a very small revenue. The Countess, a woman of remarkable talents, was enthusiastically attached to her ancestral district; and felt for its inhabitants of all orders, as was natural after a connexion lost in the night of ages, during which her house had enjoyed the support of their clansmen and vassals in many a struggle and danger. She had the spirit and heart of a genuine chieftainess; and the name of the Ban Mhoir-fhear Chattaibh-the Great Lady of the Country of the Clan-Chattanwill be proudly and affectionately remembered in the Highlands of Scotland many a year after the graceful Countess and Duchess is forgotten in the courts and palaces of which she was for a long

To her English

period one of the most brilliant ornaments. alliance, however, her lasting fame in her own district will be mainly due. Her lord inherited one very great fortune in this part of the kingdom, and ultimately wielded the resources of another not less productive; and though, as Mr. Loch's book records, no English nobleman ever did more for the improvement of his English estates, he also entered with the warmest zeal into his lady's feelings as to her ancient heritage. He added to it, by purchase, various considerable adjoining estates, which fell from time to time into the market, and, finally in 1829, one neighbouring mass of land, the whole estate or country of Lord Reay, which alone comprised not much less than 500,000 acres. It appears that from 1829 the whole northern territory of the duke must have amounted to nearly, if not quite, 1,500,000 acres,—a single estate certainly not in these days equalled in the British empire, and this in the hands of the same peer who enjoyed also the English estates of the Gowers and the Levesons, with the canal property of the Bridgewaters. It was in consequence of the Scotch estates being connected with this command of English capital that those northern regions have been, within living memory, advanced in productiveness beyond, we may safely say, any other example that could be pointed out in the history of British territorial administration; but no command of capital could have insured results so beneficial to the Sutherland family without inflicting terrible evils on the mass of the population, unless there had been a most rare combination of prudence and courage, with generosity and tenderness, in the conduct of the affair. No woman, in all likelihood, could ever have had nerves for the deliberate adherence to a fixed purpose, in spite of clamour and prejudice from without, such as alone sufficed for the successful accomplishment of the Sutherland experiment: for it involved the alteration of the whole business and habits of a great Highland population, removing them from their accustomed hills in the interior, and converting them into agriculturists and fishermen, or both combined, upon the coast; and there was no region of the North in which, down to the date of this experiment, the old feelings and customs seemed to be more firmly rooted, than throughout this then savage and poverty-stricken wilderness of mountain, lake, and morass.

Those who had to temper the perfervidum ingenium of such a race, and to lead it to the arts of industry and peace, had no easy task to perform. Perversion and misrepresentation eagerly availed themselves of the interest with which the most popular author of our time had invested the Highlanders-a people whose alteration of condition and manners could not indeed be viewed without natural

natural regret, even by those who felt that the change was for the advantage of the individual and the general prosperity of the country. The most unfounded and unwarrantable statements were put forth to create a prejudice against the improvements in this district, and in some small degree they succeeded. These efforts, however, were wisely left to time, for though the people are liable to be led away for a period by artful and designing agitators, who thrive upon their gullibility, and leave them to bear the consequences of any outbreak, the said people have, in the main, a shrewd notion of their own interest; and, fortunately for society, the spread of education and the diffusion of sound knowledge is rendering the demagogue's noisy hate' more powerless every day. The improvements went on through evil report and good report, guided by Mr. Loch, and supported by the calm, cool judgment and unflinching justice of the late Duke of Sutherland; and the result has been a large addition, not only to the revenues of the noble family, but to the sum of human comfort and happiness.

'It seemed,' says Mr. Loch, as if it had been pointed out by nature, that the system for this remote district, in order that it might bear its suitable importance in contributing its share to the general stock of the country, was to convert the mountainous districts into sheep-walks, and to remove the inhabitants to the coast or to the valleys near the sea.

'It will be seen that the object to be obtained by this arrangement was two-fold: it was, in the first place, to render this mountainous district contributory, as far as it was possible, to the general wealth and industry of the country, and in the manner most suitable to its situation and peculiar circumstances-this was to be effected by making it produce a large supply of wool for the staple manufactory of England— while, at the same time, it would support as numerous and a far more laborious and useful population than it hitherto had done at home; and, in the second place, to convert the inhabitants of those districts to the habits of regular and continued industry, and to enable them to bring to market a very considerable surplus quantity of provisions for the supply of the large towns in the southern parts of the island, or for the purpose of exportation. A policy well calculated to raise the importance and increase the happiness of the individuals themselves who were the objects of the change, to benefit those to whom these extensive but hitherto unproductive possessions belonged, and to promote the general prosperity of the nation. Such was the system which was adopted. In carrying it into effect, every care was taken to explain the object proposed to be accomplished to those who were to be removed, and to point out to them the ultimate advantages that would necessarily accrue to them from their completion.

'It was distinctly admitted, that it was not to be expected that the people would be immediately reconciled to them. Such was to expect more than it was possible to hope for. But it was represented that, if