To The
Servants And Dependents That Were Not Domesticks, And If An
Estimate Be Made From The Capacity Of Any Of Their Old Houses Which
I Have Seen, Their Domesticks Could Have Been But Few, Were
Appropriated Certain Portions Of Land For Their Support.
Macdonald
has a piece of ground yet, called the Bards or Senachies field.
When a beef was killed for the house, particular parts were claimed
as fees by the several officers, or workmen.
What was the right of
each I have not learned. The head belonged to the smith, and the
udder of a cow to the piper: the weaver had likewise his
particular part; and so many pieces followed these prescriptive
claims, that the Laird's was at last but little.
The payment of rent in kind has been so long disused in England,
that it is totally forgotten. It was practised very lately in the
Hebrides, and probably still continues, not only in St. Kilda,
where money is not yet known, but in others of the smaller and
remoter Islands. It were perhaps to be desired, that no change in
this particular should have been made. When the Laird could only
eat the produce of his lands, he was under the necessity of
residing upon them; and when the tenant could not convert his stock
into more portable riches, he could never be tempted away from his
farm, from the only place where he could be wealthy. Money
confounds subordination, by overpowering the distinctions of rank
and birth, and weakens authority by supplying power of resistance,
or expedients for escape.
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