Download Volume 12 here

—
428 Gaelic Society of Inverness.
yt service to any that shall employ him, and yt he shall have a
sixpence for every person come to age and fourpence for every
child, and the gentlemen shall be left to their own discration ;
and the Session appoint then- Clerk to give him a crown out of
their boxt for buying tools."
We come next upon the
by the Session
record of a singular payment made
:
" December 9th, 1750.—Petition John M'Intosh, Court Officer
at Ruthven, creaving that the Kirk-Session may allow him payment
for his trouble and pains at the Session Desire in apprehending
the person of Christian Guthrie, and incarcerating and retaining
her in the Tolbooth of Ruthven for the space of 21 days, by which
he is entitled to prison wages. The Session appointed 3 sh. and
Gd str. to be given him, and that the Minister pay him out of the
funds in his hands."
In of the following year we have the complaint of a
greviously afflicted "Jean Macpherson," mated to a more than
ordinarily boozy and wicked tailor body, who made a "football"
of his own infant :—
" Fehruarij \Oth, 1751.—Compeared Jean Macpherson, spouse
to John M'Intire, taylor in Ruthven, complaining on her said
husband, that he is a habitual drunkard, frequenting changehouses,
spending his efiects, ruining his family, beating the complainer,
and selling his back cloaths and bed cloaths for liquor, and
that, when he comes home drunk, he tosses his own infant like a
foot-ball, and threatens to take away her own life ; she therefore
begged the Session that they would put a stop to the progress of
his wicked life, and secure tlie safety of the complainer and her
child, and that they would disoharge all the Change-keepers in the
Parish from giving him liquor."
The deliverance of the Session in the case of the unfortunate
" Jean" would surely satisfy the most ardent temperance reformer
of the present day : —
" The Session, considering this complaint, and being persuaded
of the verity of the facts, do agree to petition the Judge-
Ordinary to interpose his authority that no Change-keepers or
sellers of liquor votsoever shall gift or sell liquor of any kind,
either ale or aquavitie, to the said John, under the failzie of
twenty shillings str., the one-half of which to be applied for the
support of the complainer and her child, and that this act, when
obtained, shall be intimated from the Pulpit."
Similar interesting extracts from the Kingussie Records could
be almost indefinitely multiplied, but the gleanings already given