The tartan, though Scottish in its development, was hardly an original invention. The word comes from the Spanish and French “tire taine,” meaning in the former language something thin and flimsy, from “tire tar,” to tremble, or shiver, with the cold. In French, the term “tire taine” refers to the mingled fibres of linen and wool, or linsey-woolsey. Probably no word is known in either Gaelic or English, before the fifteenth century, describing the finer sort of tartans. After this date, the vocabulary is rich and the industry greatly developed. It is certain that the Highlanders by the eighteenth century possessed these peculiar textiles and their patterns which were varied to a wonderful degree, so that each clan had its own special tartan, by which it was distinguished. The Scots made the tartan the fit substitute for a heraldry that expresses itself in the “arms” and in a system of symbolical decoration copied from plants, animals, or the implements of war or industry. It is probable that European heraldry arose out of the crusades, which gave also to Scottish blazonry a tremendous impetus. When, however, the modern world at large, attracted by the beauty and solid value of the Scotch tartans, used these as articles of dress for their own personal decoration, or for purely commercial advantage, then the heraldry of the tartan suffered confusion and decay. Manufacturers, for the sake of the money to be gained in the new enterprise, began to design new and purely imaginary tartans. This proceeding gave rise to the jests and ribaldry of the shallow skeptics, who throw doubt upon the reality of these distinctive patterns as ever having been, as at one time they undoubtedly were, distinctive as the particular badges of particular clans. The truth lies midway between the enthusiast and the doubter. In political history, when conquest, subjection, or subordination of all to the supreme government must be secured, it seems necessary, at times, to suppress or abolish certain outward symbols or forms of dress which ally the thoughts and feelings of those subordinated to the insurgent past. It seems best to ban these, at least until the time when, order and uniformity having been secured, the resumption of the old liberty of dress, which has no longer any political significance, may be harmless. In the old Scot’s land we have heard about “the wearing of the green”--long proscribed, then allowed. The Highlander’s costume has to-day no political significance, though it was once the badge of the insurgent, and later for a time under ban. After Culloden, in 1745, the British Parliament passed laws by which the Scottish hill people were deprived of their weapons. Then, also, the Highland dress was prohibited under severe penalties. Happily however, that ban was lifted in good season.