and also various perquisites, such as the delivery of poultry and eggs, giving so many days' labor in harvest time, cutting and carrying peat and stones for building.

Since 1811 the people have become immediate tenants, at a greatly diminished rate of rent, and released from all these exactions. For instance, in two parishes, in 1812, the rents were one thousand five hundred and ninety-three pounds, and in 1823 they were only nine hundred and seventy-two pounds. In another parish the reduction of rents has amounted, on an average, to thirty-six per cent. Previous to 1811 the houses were turf huts of the poorest description, in many instances the cattle being kept under the same roof with the family. Since 1811 a large proportion of their houses have been rebuilt in a superior manner the landlord having paid them for their old timber where it could not be moved, and having also contributed the new timber, with lime.

Before 1811 all the rents of the estates were used for the personal profit of the landlord; but since that time, both by the present duke and his father, all the rents have been expended on improvements in the county, besides sixty thousand pounds more which have been remitted from England for the purpose. This money has been spent on churches, school houses, harbors, public inns, roads, and bridges.

In 1811 there was not a carriage road in the county, and only two bridges. Since that time four hundred and thirty miles of road have been constructed on the estate, at the expense of the proprietor and tenants. There is not a turnpike gate in the county, and yet the roads are kept perfect.

Before 1811 the mail was conveyed entirely by a foot runner, and there was but one post office in the county; and there was no direct post across the county, but letters to the north

spirit of appreciation. While the Halls, and Trollopes, and all the rest could see nothing but our breaking eggs on the wrong end, or such matters, he discerned and interpreted those points wherein lies the real strength of our growing country. His notes on America were not very extended, being only sketches delivered as a lyceum lecture some years after his return. It was the spirit and quality, rather than quantity, of the thing that was noticeable.

I observe that American newspapers are sneering about his preface to Uncle Tom's Cabin; but they ought at least to remember that his sentiments with regard to slavery are no sudden freak. In the first place, he comes of a family that has always been on the side of liberal and progressive principles. He himself has been a leader of reforms on the popular side. It was a temporary defeat, when run as an anti-corn-law candidate, which gave him leisure to travel in America. Afterwards he had the satisfaction to be triumphantly returned for that district, and to see the measure he had advocated fully successful.

While Lord Carlisle was in America he never disguised those antislavery sentiments which formed a part of his political and religious creed as an Englishman, and as the heir of a house always true to progress. Many cultivated English people have shrunk from acknowledging abolitionists in Boston, where the ostracism of fashion and wealth has been enforced against them. Lord Carlisle, though moving in the highest circle, honestly and openly expressed his respect for them on all occasions. He attended the Boston antislavery fair, which at that time was quite a decided step. Nor did he even in any part of our country disguise his convictions. There is, therefore, propriety and consistency in the course he has taken now.

that time many thousand acres of woodland have been planted, the thinnings of which, being sold to the people at a moderate rate, have greatly increased their comfort and improved their domestic arrangements.

Before 1811 there were only two blacksmiths in the county. In 1845 there were forty-two blacksmiths and sixty-three carpenters. Before 1829 the exports of the county consisted of black cattle of an inferior description, pickled salmon, and some ponies; but these were precarious sources of profit, as many died in winter for want of food; for example, in the spring of 1807 two hundred cows, five hundred cattle, and more than two hundred ponies died in the parish of Kildonan alone. Since that time the measures pursued by the Duke of Sutherland, in introducing improved breeds of cattle, pigs, and modes of agriculture, have produced results in exports which tell their own story. About forty thousand sheep and one hundred and eighty thousand fleeces of wool are exported annually; also fifty thousand barrels of herring.

The whole fishing village of Helmsdale has been built since that time. It now contains from thirteen to fifteen curing yards covered with slate, and several streets with houses similarly built. The herring fishery, which has been mentioned as so productive, has been established since the change, and affords employment to three thousand nine hundred people.

Since 1811, also, a savings bank has been established in every parish, of which the Duke of Sutherland is patron and treasurer, and the savings have been very considerable.

The education of the children of the people has been a subject of deep interest to the Duke of Sutherland. Besides the parochial schools, (which answer, I suppose, to our district

head of her majesty's household. The queen's spirited refusal to surrender her favorite attendant attracted, at the time, universal admiration.

Like her brother Lord Carlisle, the Duchess of Sutherland has always professed those sentiments with regard to slavery which are the glory of the English nation, and which are held with more particular zeal by those families who are favorable to the progress of liberal ideas.

At about seven o'clock we took our carriage to go to the Earl of Carlisle's, the dinner hour being here somewhere between eight and nine. As we rode on through the usual steady drizzling rain, from street to street and square to square, crossing Waterloo Bridge, with its avenue of lamps faintly visible in the seethy mist, plunging through the heart of the city, we began to realize something of the immense extent of London.

Altogether the most striking objects that you pass, as you ride in the evening thus, are the gin shops, flaming and flaring from the most conspicuous positions, with plate-glass windows and dazzling lights, thronged with men, and women, and children, drinking destruction. Mothers go there with babies in their arms, and take what turns the mother's milk to poison. Husbands go there, and spend the money that their children want for bread, and multitudes of boys and girls of the age of my own. In Paris and other European cities, at least the great fisher of souls baits with something attractive, but in these gin shops men bite at the bare, barbed hook. There are no garlands, no dancing, no music, no theatricals, no pretence of social exhilaration, nothing but hogsheads of spirits, and people going in to drink. The number of them that I passed seemed to me absolutely appalling.

After long driving we found ourselves coming into the precincts of the West End, and began to feel an indefinite sense that we were approaching something very grand, though I cannot say that we saw much but heavy, smoky-walled buildings, washed by the rain. At length we stopped in Grosvenor Place, and alighted.

We were shown into an anteroom adjoining the entrance hall, and from that into an adjacent apartment, where we met Lord Carlisle. The room had a pleasant, social air, warmed and enlivened by the blaze of a coal fire and wax candles.

We had never, any of us, met Lord Carlisle before; but the considerateness and cordiality of our reception obviated whatever embarrassment there might have been in this circumstance. In a few moments after we were all seated the servant announced the Duchess of Sutherland, and Lord Carlisle presented me. She is tall and stately, with a decided fulness of outline, and a most noble bearing. Her fair complexion, blond hair, and full lips speak of Saxon blood. In her early youth she might have been a Rowena. I thought of the lines of Wordsworth: :

"A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, to command."

Her manners have a peculiar warmth and cordiality. One sees people now and then who seem to radiate kindness and vitality, and to have a faculty of inspiring perfect confidence in a moment. There are no airs of grandeur, no patronizing ways; but a genuine sincerity and kindliness that seem to come from a deep fountain within.

The engraving by Winterhalter, which has been somewhat familiar in America, is as just a representation of her air and bearing as could be given.