SCOTLAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 30, 19 December 1861, Page 3

SCOTLAND.

The Highlands of Scotland. —The Editor of the London Morning Advertiser has recently been travelling in the Highlands, and we copy his remarks on the excellent Canal steamers : —

" Though the weather during the month of August was unfavorable for travelling in the Western Highlands of Scotland, the steamboats of Mr. David Hutcheson were daily crowded with pleasure-seeking tourists. ISTof can this be wondered at, when the cheapness, the elegance, and the comfort of that gentleman's steamers, in conjunction with the singularly beautiful scenery of the routes along ! which they pass, are taken into account. Mr. jHutcheson has not only placed his own icountrymen, but also those south of the Tweed, under the deepest obligations for the facilities which he has thus provided along the most interesting and beautiful portions of Scotia's land and waters. We feel assured that the day is not distant when those who are in quest of magnificent and diversified scenery, will, instead of repairing to the Continent, flock in crowds to the picturesque regions of the Western Highlands of Scotland, now rendered of such easy access through Mr. Hutcheson's public spirit and enterprise." Friendly Societies.—There are at present thirty-three deposit and friendly societies in Aberdeen in connection with the Protective Union, with a total of 5922 members. During the past year these societies have paid £607 10s. 6d. to members on the sick list; £136 for defraying the expenses of member's funerals ; £67 for defraying the expenses of members' wives'funerals; £211 15s. for defraying the expenses of funerals of members' children— making a total expenditure of £1022 ss. sd. Mr. James Gordon, M.A., late of Marischal College, Aberdeen, and author of " Lunar Tables," &c, has received £100 from the Royal Bounty, through Lord Palmerston.

The London correspondent of the Liverpool Albion thus criticizes a book written by the Hon. Mrs. Yelverton, in which she has laid great stress upon those who are " martys to circumstances :— "But difficult indeed is it to find out this lady herself, or discover what she is driving at. There is no saying who are her ' Martyrs to Circumstances,' unless it be the three-shilling purchasers of her catchpenny, who are certainly martyrs to the circumstances of a preposterous investment. As far as one can guess at her drift, it would seem that she personifies herself in the seminun and demi-sister of charity, called Thierna, whom we had in the previous start; and that the Major, who makes love to her, or rather who is made love to by her, is the Captain Etherington of the story;'—the outline of the mock marriage, if mock it were, as developed on the trial, being tolerably adhered to. She talks of * those fascinating Kate Kearneys, whose breath is incense and whose glance is intoxication,' in a remarkably tumti-ti fashion, and then asks, ' Reader, were you ever in love ?' and proceeds to descant, like a sheSam lover in prose, upon the tender passion being indulged in upon an Irish jaunting car, namely, ' it is a carriage singularly adapted for love making. The lovers are side by side, as close as need be, their faces turned from everybody but each other. The gentleman cannot well sit without placing his arm on the back of the car, from which the jolting over rough roads might often dislodge the lad}''; and the rumble precludes all eavesdropping. A more complete tete-a-tete could not be obtained in public' Prett}' well that, but it is nothing to this. -Thierna and Capt. Etherington, otherwise Miss Longvvorth and Major Yelverton, were married and they wern't; —half and half, neither one thing nor the other, but more t'other, as Mr. Slick says. The Scotch part had been done, but the lady was in a mist as to the forensic significance of mumbling the service over without the clergyman ; and she had gone to Ireland to have the wrong of the right rectified. The Major was to meet her, and did meet her. But how, where ? In a road-side public house, in which she had gone to sleep, and where she rose in the morning in a Nora Criena kind of anti-stay-lacedness, 'leaving every beauty free to sink or swell as nature pleases,' as Mr. Tomtit Moore has it, and thus described by herself:—' She was awakened by a tap at her door, and a voice, which thrilled her very soul, whispered ' cara mi a.' She sprang softly from the bed, and throwing on a loose dressing gown, opened the door, and was caught rapturously to the heart she adored. A pause of intense happiness ensued, and she overflowed with teaes. He took the little hand in

his, and kissed each eyelid in turn. He drew her down upon the couch, which instantly tripped upon its broken leg, sliding the lovers off on to the broken floor. They both laughed, and carefully reseated themselves in the centre in order to balance it.' Then follows a sort of Mary Wolstencroft Godwin discussion as to keeping him. 'dangling for four months between Paradise and the Inferns, 1 because of the absence of the priest, whom he at last provides, according to the circumstances exhibited at the trial. This unfortunate functionary is delineated with ferocious gusto by the fair harpy, who tears him limb from limb, under the hardly disguised designation of the Rev. Bartholemew O'Looney.i But before the consummatory stage of the connubiality is reached there is further billing land cooingVf a sort that would be pronounced highly prononce in La Dame aux ComMias. Here is an ameliorated specimen:—'After dinner, which was both well cooked and well served—the lovers refused the lights, and sat ■In the moonlight, which Hooded the rooms

with its silvery rays. Thierna threw the cushion at Etherington's feet and sat, in her Turkish fashion, resting her two hands upon his knees, and looking with her soft deep eyes into his face, she said —* Cyril, was there ever such a very odd state of things as our present position, not to know if we are really married or not ? ' Very odd,' replied he, dreamily, taking one of her little hands in his. ' I feel as though we were married,' said Thierna, * but 1 do not know.' ' There I differ from you,' replied Cjrril ; 'I do not feel as though we were married, but am quite sure Aye are.' ' Well, lam very glad of that, for it might seem to be very wrong of me t© be sitting here, and living under the same roof, like a sister, when in fact you are nothing to me,' said Thierna, rising a little hastily, and blushing deeply.' Rather late for rising, and later still for blushing, one would think ; but perhaps this was being a 1 Martyr to circumstances,' not acutely agonising to one of the brace, mayhap. Made one at last, by Father O'Looney, the pair set off first to Avignon, and then to Scot - land, and spent a whole year of honeymoons alternately among the grapes and thistles, till it turns out that he is over head and ears in debt; and, partly through fear of his mother, and partly through the wheedling of her lawyer, he is inveigled into a marriage with an heiress, for whom he cares nothing; is thrown into prison for bigamy; gets off through lack of proof of the first marriage; goes to the wars, the Lord knows where; is wounded, and dies in the arms of his Thierna, who attends him as a Sister of Mercy.