The fact that “people of quality” keep pipers also helps wonderfully to preserve the music. The Sovereign’s example in this respect has been followed by a great many of the old nobility, and even these men who rise from the ranks, and whose only claim for admission into aristocratic circles is their wealth, must needs do as the others do. In other words, it is now fashionable to keep a piper. Non-Highlanders have adopted the kilt—the once proscribed dress—and wear it while holidaying in the Highlands, and whether or not they appreciate pipe music, they have it. This results in a state of affairs not always pleasing to the true Highlander, but it does much to preserve what the true Highlander, if left to himself in these latter days, would certainly neglect. There is undoubtedly a lot of sham and affectation about the Highland sentiment of to-day, but that is inevitable, and so long as with it all the old customs are maintained, we ought not to grumble. As to the quality of the music in these days of ours, it is to be feared that since the piper became a domestic servant he has found it to his interest to cultivate the tastes of strangers, and hence the warlike character of the pipes has been considerably toned down. The composition of salutes and pibrochs is still attempted, and with a certain degree of success, but pipers would gain quite as much credit by paying more attention to the first-rate works of their predecessors as by composing and playing tunes of their own. Where a musical ear is accompanied by scientific knowledge, the present-day piper has a great advantage over those of a hundred years ago, but the fact remains that there are no tunes like the old tunes, and their intrinsic merit is the pride of the piping fraternity. Present-day conditions are not conducive to the production of good music, and we should be glad that we have a race of men capable of adequately interpreting the old.