A SCOTCH EVICTION SCANDAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1664, 16 September 1887, Page 3

A SCOTCH EVICTION SCANDAL.

! It is not m Ireland only that what Lord ; Saliabury calla " ecandaloua" evictions are taking place — aa will be seen from the following letter sent to a London paper by " A native of Loch Broom " : — j I hope you will grant spioe for the exposure to apparently well-merited public odium of those gallty of uncalledfor harshnes3 towards a poor Highland widow and her six young orphans. I Widow "Ronald Mackay has been tenant ! of the meal mill at Ullapool, Loch Broom, Ross-shire, since her husband's death. Bather than be made a charge on the pariah rates, ehehae, with helpof a younger brother, carried on the work of the mill ; and tilled the small croft at! ached to it, j paying the rent aa best she could, for those I who know the nuill and the land attached to it can only marvel how she managed to do ao. Suffice to say that she did it, and that she sold two stirka and a pig m : order to pay the last rent due. Why it was refuse! when Offered ; why the I ground officer refaied to aocompany her jto the agent's office, I know not The ! agent of Lady Mstheßon, of Stornoway i Castle, is a Mr Munro, and bis daughter is Miss Munro. They were ao determined to be quit of the poor widow that twice they had her forcibly evicted — the people patting her m possession again the first time. On the* seoopd occasion everything was so secured that ■he could not get at the meal with which to make food for her family. What accentuates the harshness of the Munroei is the fact that Miss Munro aooompanisd the local policeman to Bee the eviction oaried out ! Again : Mrs Mackay's grandfather, two uncles, a cousin, and her husband preceeded her m ocenp^noy during about 60 years, so that if she had had the place for nothing it had been well paid for. Tho man *ho was made tenant knew so little of the work that he got the machinery into disorder, and one employed to repair damages made it. worse ; bo if he knows all this, or erea part of it, Lady Matheson's chamberlain at Stornaway may weil be ashamed of it, instead of appearing to be not unwilling to dare a question m the House of Commons which this letter through your kindnesa will ebsure the patting of. With the exception of three or four persons, all the inhabitants of Ullapool signed a petition m Mrs Mackay's favor. The clergyman, two J.P.s, and all the rest of the community were her determined frlendß, and the Crofters' Commissioners have ordered her to be reinstated until they deoide matters.