All farther serious controversy on the subject, in short, is destined to be of this character--common-sense and practical; and the sooner we prepare ourselves, as honest enquirers, to engage in it after this fashion and in this spirit, the better. P. HATELY WADDELL. THE HIGHLAND CEILIDH. BY ALASTAIR OG. WE are in a west coast village or township, cut off from all communication with the outer world, without Steamers, Railways, or even Roads. We grow our own corn, and produce our beef, our mutton, our butter, our cheese, and our wool. We do our own carding, our spinning, and our weaving. We marry and are taken in marriage by, and among, our own kith and kin. In short, we are almost entirely independent of the more civilized and more favoured south. The few articles we do not produce--tobacco and tea,--our local merchant, the only one in a district about forty square miles in extent, carries on his back, once a month or so, from the Capital of the Highlands. We occasionally indulge in a little whisky at Christmas and the New Year, at our weddings and our balls. We make it too, and we make it well. The Salmon Fishery Acts are, as yet, not strictly enforced, and we can occasionally shoot--sometimes even in our gardens--and carry home, without fear of serious molestation, the monarch of the forest. We are not overworked. We live plainly but well, on fresh fish, potatoes and herring, porridge and milk, beef and mutton, eggs, butter, and cheese. Modern pickles and spices are as unknown as they are unnecessary. True, our houses are built not according to the most modern principles of architecture. They are, in most cases, built of undressed stone and moss (_coinneach_), thatched with turf or divots, generally covered over with straw or ferns held on by a covering of old herring nets, straw, and rope, or _siaman_.