The present form of the Highland dress, in which the kilt--sometimes called "philabeg"--is made up as a separate garment, has given rise to much controversy. The strife is said to have originated in a letter in the _Scots Magazine_ in 1798; it was stated that about 1728 one Parkinson, an Englishman, who was superintendent of works in Lochaber, finding his Highland labourers encumbered with their belted plaids, taught them to separate the plaid from the kilt and sew the kilt in its present form. Others say that the inventor of the kilt was Thomas Rawlinson, of the Glengarry ironworks, who about the same date and for the same reason introduced the supposed new dress. Mr J. G. Mackay, in the treatise already referred to, proves incontestably that the separate form of the kilt is very ancient, and cannot have been the subject of a comparatively modern invention. The truth seems to be that, whilst the belted plaid was most generally worn, as requiring no tailoring, the separate kilt is of equal or greater antiquity, and was at all times occasionally used on account of its superior convenience, especially in those localities where the tailor's art was practised. An incidental corroboration of Mr Mackay's view is to be seen in a plan of Aberdeen, dated 1661, preserved in the municipal buildings of that city. In a corner of the plan three figures are represented, two of them in the lowland costume of the seventeenth century, and the third, a young man, dressed in a kilt and short coat without plaid, being exactly the form of the Highland dress as now generally worn. The Highland figure was probably introduced to record the then semi-Highland character of Aberdeen. In order to repress the Highland _esprit_, an act (20th George II., cap. 51) was passed after the battle of Culloden, which rendered it illegal for any man or boy after 1st August 1747 to wear the Highland dress. The effect of this law was various. In some parts it was rigidly enforced, and the kilt was generally abandoned, whilst those few who persisted in wearing it were severely punished. In other places evasions of the act were winked at by the authorities; men who procured the legal breeches would hang them over their shoulders during journeys; others used the artifice of sewing up the centre of the kilt between the legs; whilst others again substituted for the tartan kilt a piece of blue, green, or red cloth wrapped round the waist, and hanging down to the knees, but not pleated.