for a pastoral life, these people are the very
men and women needed—and most needed at
the present hour—in our Australian colonies.
Gold diggings would scarcely tempt them from
the charge of cattle; they are strongly
attached to their homes and families, are not
people of gregarious habits otherwise, and
know little or nothing of English. To assist
them in conveying themselves, with their
own free will, accompanied by their families,
to a scene of life-long activity and comfort,
is a work commenced by Scotchmen in the
afflicted districts, which has of late met with
a great deal of co-operation in this country.

A "Society for Assisting Emigration from
the Highlands and Islands of Scotland," has
recently obtained the patronage of the Prince
Consort, and looks abroad for general support.
It will promote, as much as possible, the emi-
gration of entire families, in accordance with
the rules of the Colonial Land and Emigration
Commissioners. Requiring, in the first place,
that each emigrant who asks for aid, shall
assist himself to the full extent of his available
resources, the Society proposes then to
advance, as a loan, the sum that may be
necessary for the outfit and deposit
stipulated for by the Commissioners—who
defray other expenses of the passage, justly or
unjustly, from colonial funds. One-third
of the amount lent to each emigrant will be
expected to come from the owner or trustees
of the property vacated. The money repaid
by the emigrant, after he shall have settled
prosperously in Australia, will be spent in
assisting others to pass over. Any emigrant,
when he shall have repaid the whole of the
amount borrowed from the Society, will be
entitled to claim priority of assistance for one
friend at home, whom he may name.

When the surplus population of the
Highlands shall have been quietly settled in
Australia, and live, for their own part,

"From the dark chambers of dejection freed,
Spurning the unprofitable yoke of cave,"

they who remain behind may live al peace in
districts that suffice for their support. At
present there is in the north of Scotland a
great multitude sitting down on the grass and
waiting in vain to be fed with the five loaves
and two fishes that belong to them in their
own right. They satisfy their cravings upon
garbage, or they eat bread from charitable
hands, when, if they could but cross to the
other side of the water, from which they are
so eagerly beckoned, each man might be lord
of his own pantry. To step across the pool,
however, these men need a bridge— just such
a bridge, in fact, as that which is now being
built under the name of the Highland and
Island Emigration Fund.

DARKNESS IN DEVONSHIRE.

OUR Devonshire is a delightful county.
At rest after a day's shooting in the cottage
of a labourer, the eldest girl being at her
lace-pill (so they call lace-pillow), I asked)
"How many of you are there, Mary?"
"Five of us children, sir, besides father and
mother." "What are your father's wages?"
"Seven shillings a week; but he pays a
shilling a week to the farmer for this
cottage, and he is obliged to buy his wheat
of him at six shillings a bushel," (the price
at the time was under five shillings,) " and
we eats a matter of three peck a week.
I gets eighteenpence a week at my lace-pill,
that is, I get sugar and butte; for if they
pay me in money they expect seven
pennyworth of lace for sixpence, and fourteen
pennyworth of lace for a shilling." Will anybody
by a process of arithmetic discover how much
labourers in Devonshire are able to expend on
education?

The sun is very bright in Devonshire upon
our leaves and flowers. Our myrtles flower,
and our magnolias climb to the house-top, but
our human minds—nothing enlightens them,
they do not flower, they do not rise above the
level of the dust. There are to be found
amongst us even farmers, paying rent at the
rate of three or four hundred a year, who cannot
spell or write, better than dogs or horses can,
the names to which they answer. There is
among us much vague religious feeling, and
that, added to ignorance, makes superstition.
Nothing is more common here than to
consult the White Witch when a sheep or a spoon
has vanished; assaults against some poor old
woman who has been suspected of Black
witchcraft are of continual occurrence. I
speak advisedly, as one who, being a magistrate,
has for twenty years, had the best
means of becoming acquainted with these
things.

"If your Honour please, will you see me
righted," said a feeble crone. "I am seventy
years old, and as I was a walking on the
Queen's highway last evening, a man and
woman whom I did not know came tip and
asked me why I hurt the daughter. I said
I don't know your daughter; with that she
said that she must have my blood, and so she
failed at me, and tore my face all over, till I
could not see for blood, and the man drove a
great nail into the ground under me at the
same time." The parties accused confessed
the truth of the whole statement: the woman
observing that it was necessary she should
have the witch's blood, and the man saying
that he had himself forged the nail, which he
had driven into the ground to stop the
witchery. The daughter was suffering from
epileptic fits.

This is the fourth instance of this kind
which has come under my notice within the last
few months. In another case an old woman
had looked into her neighbour's pigstye, and
stroking the back of a young porker, had
remarked, that " she did not know when she
had seen so fine a pig." The pig died on the
succeeding day, and, on the day after that,
there died another little pig in the same stye.