Download Volume 12 here

Smuggling in the Higlilands. 283
Coast. Two of them settled down on crofts, became respectable
members of the comnxunity, and with care and thrift and hard
work even acquired some little means. The third took to
smuggling, and has never done anything else ; has been several
times in prison, has latterly lost all his smuggling utensils, and
is now an old broken-down man, without a farthing, withoiit
sympathy, without friends, one of the most wretched objects in
the whole parish. Not one in a hundred has gained anything by
smuggling in the end. I know most of the smugglers in my own
district personally. With a few exceptions they are the poorest
among the people. How can they be otherwise 1 Their's is the
work of darkness, and they must sleep through the day. Their
crofts are not half tilled or manured ; their houses are never
repaired ; their very children are neglected, dii'ty, and ragged.
They cannot bear the strain of regular steady work even if they
feel disposed. Their moral and physical stamina have become
impaired, and they can do nothing except under the unhealthy
influence of excitement and stimulants. Gradually their manhood
becomes undermined, their %ense of honour becomes deadened, and
they become violent law-breakers and shameless cheats This is
invariably the latter end of the smuggler, and generally his sons
follow his footsteps in the downward path, or he finds disciples
among his neighbours' lads, so that the evil is spread and perpetuated.
Smuggling is, in short, a curse to the individual, and
to the community.
I admit that some are driven to engage in smuggling by dire
poverty. Necessity has no law, and constant grinding poverty
leads a man to many things of which he cannot approve. " My
poverty, and not my will, consents," was the apology of the
poor apothecary of Mantua when he sold the poison to Romeo.
" These movin' things ca'd wives and weans
Wad move the very heart of stanes,"
pleaded Burns when forced to allow " clarty barm to stain
his laurels." Agur prayed to be delivered from poverty, "lest
I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain."
The hardships and teu)ptations of the abject poor are terrible,
and God forbid we should at any time become so inhuman
in our dealings with them as to sliut up the bowels of our compassion,
or forget to temper justice with mercy. I tell you frankly
that the highest sense oi duty would hardly sustain me in suppressing
the smugglers of the West Coast, unless I liad also a strong
and deep conviction that if I could dissuade or prevent them from