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282 Gaelic Society of Inuerness.
South to Inverness for two gallons of smuggled whisky. The
order being urgent, and no immediate prospect of securing the
genuine article, a dozen bottles of new raw grain spirit were sent
to a well-known smuggling locality, and weie thence despatched
'>outh as real mountain dew. No better proof could be given of
the coarseness and absolute inferiority of smuggled whisky.
But the physical injury caused by drinking an impure, immature
whisky, and the pecuniary loss sustained by purchasing
a whisky of inferior quality and unknown strength at the price of
good honest, spirit, are nothing compared to the moral aspect of
the case. Let me quote again from Stewart of Garth (1821), "I
must now advert to a cause which contributes to demoralise the
Highlanders in a manner equally rapid and lamentable. Smuggling
has grown to an alarming e.vtent, and if not checked will
undermine the best principles of the people. Let a man be
habituated to falsehood and fi-aud in one line of life, and he will
soon learn to extend it to all his actions. This traffic operates
like a secret poison on all their moral feelings. They are the
more rapidly betrayed into it, as, though acute and ingenious in
regard to all that comes within the scope of their observation,
they do not comprehend the nature or purpose of imports
levied on the produce of the soil, nor have they any distinct idea
of the practice of snniggling being attended with disgrace or tur-
pitude. The open defiance of the laws, the progress of chicanery,
pei'jury, hati-ed, and mutual recrimination, with a constant dread
and suspicion of informers—men not being sure of nor confident
in their next neighbours—which results from smuggling, and the
habits which it engenders, are subjects highly important, and regarded
with tJje most serious consideration and the deepest regret
by all who value the permanent welfare of their country, whicli
depends so materially upon the preservation of the morals of the
people."* This is a, terrible picture, but I am in a position to
vouch that it is only too true. The degradation, recklessness, and
destitution which, as a rule, follow in the wake of illicit distillation
are notorious to all. I know of three brothers on the West
•Dealing with the sul'ject of smuggling, Buckle in his "History of Civilisation,"
says:— "The economic il evils, g eat as they were, havebet-n farsnrpass.-.<
ly the moml evils which this sy.stem produced These men, ilpsperate
from the fe.r of puiiishnient, ant accustonie ! to the commission of ev.-ry
Clime, contaminated tlie suirounding populati m, introdined into peaceful
vidages vices formerlv unknown, causoil the ruin of entire familits, spread,
whertverthey came drunkenness, theft, and dissoluteness, and famdiaiiscd
their associates with those coarse and swinish debaucheries which were the
n-itnral hil>its of so vayr^int and a- lawless a life."