SCOTLAND ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 88, 3 May 1901, Page 4

SCOTLAND ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Glvzjn r Baity Mail. As we pass fiom oce century to another it is inteiesti-jg 10 lock back for a moment and see the ttite of affairs at the beginning c( the cf niaiy wlich we leave behind. "Stands Scotland where it did ?" It dota not Derinfthe laet hundred yeara Scotland his made an pn>" nines advance. Judged by <w v ten, on every subject, and i 1 y aspect, the meaeure of progress has been such that it is difficult to realise her posi'i n at the dawn ot the ninetet Lth ceutnry. Loiking back to th%t dim and d stanfc poiiit we ste a \ery small people, aid and a very poor people in thn miats of an old gray world tba'jwe nfcv>rkntw, The life thry livo.i was far reno ?ed, in sure than t : mr, from the life if to-day, As to the r tmaMness. the popaUt.ii n of Sect'and in 1801 was only 1,608, 420 ; now it is abou! i 315.000. At d as to ihfl p< orneas of the ccui try. the iffijiaily cstimeted rritil of all the land and hi u=es ia Scot! md iu the fir.'t year cf the ceutnry w»9 only s jtue £3,000 000 ; now it is u* t far eh'.'rb of £22 000,000. There was not much monty to be git V y the working classes] in the ra'ddie fe icd of the reign ofj George JIT. Tbe wßges i hit were paid then won d be laugh: d at now. A mason received about Is 8i p*r day ; a wright, 1j 4d ; a th'emaker, Is 2 i; a tailor moking op cloth in a farmer's house, 9i and Mi food ; an agricultural day-laboarer, la 31 sammer and Is in winter ; a male farm-tenant, £7 to £8 per year; aad a female farmservant, £3 10iir£4. A trifla wasj spared for the ale-house in thote diyr, but the savings bank did not get a chance. As for the people, m«le and female, who were employed in and salt works, what wages ccu'd they they exp*ctl Until the la>t> yecr of the tighueath ten ury they weresfrfs, attached to ihi w jrka in which they toiled, iiible to ke transferred with the works to a new owner or master, and receiving 22s a year as the wages fixed by law. Col are legally bound to work iu tlia miuea all their live', end th ir children afcc-r them. On'y in 1799 did Parliament give them their fte :dom. The diftereooe in m'nMS* wages te'wpeu 22s a }eir with slavery and 8i a diy with liberty is ore of the notalle d ff;recc s between the end cf the eighteenth and the en I of the niuetenth centu'y.