I doubt if you could find one such in all Scotland. The classes corresponding to the “hinds” and “navvies” of England, cannot only read and write, but are capable of enjoying literature in its higher developments. Our farming-men at home used to spend their evenings, after their frugal supper of kail brose, in reading the newspapers and discussing the debates in Parliament. Our herd-boy taught himself the elements of astronomy out in the fields, while tending the cattle. He was the first to tell me the names of the planets and point them out to me. I taught him, in return, a little Latin; and I remember, during my last year at college, meeting this herd-boy in the quadrangle, arrayed in the red toga. I have since heard that he carried off the first mathematical prize. FOOTNOTES [3] In an abstract of a bill for bettering the condition of the schoolmasters of Scotland, passed at the beginning of the century, it is laid down that “the amount of salary to each parochial schoolmaster shall not be less than the average annual wages of a day labourer, nor above that of two day labourers.” The Convict out in the World. At stated periods, the governor of a convict prison gives audience to such inmates of his mansion as may have complaints to make, or petitions to prefer; and of the demands most commonly heard, from old and young, one of the commonest is: “Please, sir, may I grow?” It sounds odd to hear the naïve request put by some square-shouldered grey-haired fellow; but it is usually found so reasonable that, after a word or two of inquiry, the governor consents. The man wishes to let his hair grow within the next three or four months before his leaving the prison; and it is the first step towards his release, whether it be on the expiry of his sentence, or on his earning a “conditional pardon.” Subsequently, the chaplain of the prison sends forth certain formal questions as to the man’s prospect of obtaining honest employment out of doors; and about a month before the date of his departure, the chaplain addresses a letter to any person by whom the prisoner hopes to be employed, describing the man’s state of health, stating his conduct in prison, and asking whether his report upon the subject of employment is true, or whether he has any other means of support. In the majority of cases, I am told, the replies are “satisfactory;” but, in some instances, they are otherwise, and, in some, the man can give no reference. Within my own very limited range of individual observation, I have observed in England the same circumstance which I have noticed in Ireland—that the prisoner often has a dread of returning to his friends, not only because he fears that his character will be known, but because he is too well aware that those with whom he has been acquainted before he entered the prison will draw him back into evil courses. At once, then, we perceive a very unexpected symptom of improvement: the desire of the prisoner to cut all