_Listing_ appears to have been the slang, or, more properly speaking, the business term for kidnapping, and the price of the operation passes through a scale of sums, graduated probably to the difficulty of the task. Thus, while Williamson was procured for 1s. 6d., there is an entry "To a Serjeant for listing Mackie, 5s.;" while on the other hand, there is only "1s. 4½d. to Lighton and a soldier for listing Robert Paterson." There is one sweeping charge of a guinea, "to Maclean, sent to the country to list servants,"--amount of business done not stated, but it must have been considerable, as there are occasional entries of "cash sent to the country to Maclean." Sometimes sums are entered as paid to the parties themselves--as 5s. "to Margaret Robertson, when listed;" yet this can scarcely have been a voluntary operation on Margaret's part, as the immediate succeeding item is 1s. 6d. "to the wright on board and one of the boys for listing her." Five shillings are entered as "to two soldiers for listing Allardyce." He must have been a difficult boy to catch, as there is a further entry of 2s., as "cash they spent with him." This item introduces us to a dark feature in the expenditure of the kidnappers,--the sums that appear to have been spent by them in vicious indulgences to their young captives, to prevent the tedium of their imprisonment, from driving them to desperate efforts for their escape. We have thus,--"to the boys to play at cards, 1s.;" and in another place, "to the boys to drink, when put in the workhouse, 1s.; to six packs of cards to them, 9d." It is almost a relief in the perusal of these heartless business-like columns--every red line of which has the hard outline of premeditated cruelty--to read of 1s. 6d. being paid "to the piper for playing in the workhouse two days." But in the neighbourhood of this, there are some entries which we dare not copy. There is a candid explicitness about these accounts, which we must confess that we have not sufficient virtuous courage to imitate, by transferring to our columns some charges, of which we would yet fain give our readers an idea. The person who kept the books no doubt "called a spade a spade;" and, indeed, he bestowed on many other things their ordinary vulgar nomenclature. We tremble in approaching his most explicit declarations; we almost fear reproach in offering to the reader an extract of an item, in which he has been very decorous, considering the subject; but such an item! who shall explain its meaning? Here it is--"To Colonel Horsie for his concubine, £1!"