The Daily Dispatch

SHOCKING BRUTALITY
ON THE DUKE OF
SUTHERLAND
ESTATES.
The Northern Ensign (Scotch paper) has the following:
In a small house in Tubeg Skerray, in the parish of Tongue, lived a Highlander and his wife, within less than a quarter of a mile of the house in which they were both born and brought up, and which their fathers still occupied, as tenants under the Duke of Sutherland, Mr. Robert Horsborough being factor.-
Shortly before the occurrence which our contemporary relates, Wm. M'Kay's wife was confined of her fourth child, and was still in bed and unfit to be removed from it. But on the 26th of June, a neighbor informed M'Kay that a party of law officers were coming to turn himself and family out. The husband hastened to the house to inform his wife, and of course console her. In an instant the messenger-at-arms, with his party, were at the door; their speaking was heard by the poor woman, and she began to tremble; cold perspiration covered her body all over: the officers came in and soon cleared the house of every article of furniture; and lastly, the wife and her newly-born babe, must be turned out too. The midwife remonstrated, but in vain. The law officers said they would be required to execute their commission. The poor woman was, in spite of every remonstrance, doomed to be removed. These executioners of justice had, they said, their instructions- but, may it not be said, wanted the tenderness which would suggest to them the delicacy and danger of interfering with a woman in such a state?
They surrounded her in the corner in which she lay, laid hold of the sheet or covering which was under her, carried her out of the house, and placed her on the ground at a distance, and sped back to the work of demolition; divots and cabers were thrown in all directions; the hatchet cut down the couple-tree, and in a very short time the roof of the hut disappeared, and so did its destroyers. They had more work of a kindred nature to perform that day.
In an agony of feeling, the husband ran off a distance of five miles to procure medical aid, while his wife, with her new-born infant, lay on a little straw upon the ground; and it was not till night that, by the kindness of her poor neighbors, she and her children were deposited in an empty barn. We cannot, except in some of our English poor law cruelties, recall such a circumstance which has occasioned us deeper indignation than the incidents of this painful narrative, nor one which demands stricter investigation. In the former, we have, indeed, had cruelty in its worst possible form as far as the acts themselves are concerned.
We can understand the workhouse official, snatched perhaps from starvation by the salary he receives, and eager to recommend himself to his employers by an economising use of his functions, committing acts of inhumanity at which one feels horrified. But that such things can take place under the eyes of the Duke of Sutherland, fills us with as much astonishment as pain. It is not many months since the ladies of England appealed to their sisters in America on behalf of the blacks, imploring them to exert their influence to put an end to the system of slavery; and the first name which the signature to that appeal bore, was the name of the Duchess of Sutherland- Will that woman look at home and think of poor Wm McKay's wife, carried in a sheet out of her hut, and laid trembling on the ground, with her new born infant in her arms? Will she speak one eloquent word of remonstrance in favor of the poor whites who have the misfortune, at this moment, to have their holdings on her husband's estate?