The collier villages round Niddry have long since disappeared. The seams have for all practical purposes been worked out, or have been given up as unprofitable. There he found the last surviving remains of slavery in Scotland, for the older men of the place, though born and bred 'within a mile of Edinburgh toun,' had yet been born slaves. The modern reader will find much curious information upon this subject in Erskine's _Institutes_; but, in passing, we may recall the fact that Sir Walter Scott has mentioned the case of Scott of Harden and his lady, who had rescued by law a tumbling-girl who had been sold by her parents to a travelling mountebank, and who was set at liberty after an appeal to the Lords, against the decision of the Chancellor. Scott was assoilzied; but, even as late as 1799, an Act of Parliament had to be passed dealing specially with this last remnant of feudal slavery--the salters and the colliers of Scotland. The old family of the Setons of Winton had, along with others, exercised great political influence and pressure on the Court of Session, and had repeatedly managed to defeat or evade measures of reform. A law had even been passed enacting that no collier or salter, without a certificate from his last place, could find work, but should be held as a thief and punished as such, while a later ordinance was that, as they 'lay from their work at Pasche, Yule and Whitsunday, to the great offence of God _and prejudice of their masters_,' they should work every day in the week except at Christmas! Clearly there was no Eight Hours Bill in Old Scotland.