"May I beg your Lordship's favourable consideration for my poor people when you have any funds at your disposal for the relief of the distressed.

"In one parish, Keelgarry lander, whose valuation is only £2,000, and the rental mostly double, with a population of over 2,500, entirely agricultural, the distress is very great.

"Their dwellings are mostly wretched, they have scarcely any fuel but the heather they bring from the mountain, on whose barren slopes the most of them strive to find a livelihood by reclaiming and tilling the craggy, unproductive hillside.

"There is no employment given except by one landlord, Mr. Lang ford Rae, but what can one do among so many poor?

"From my own personal knowledge I can certify to your Lordship that the bedclothes of numbers of them, and whatever other clothes the pawnbroker would take in pledge, are in pawn for their support.

"The children are kept from school through want of even the scanty and ragged covering that would at other times pass muster in this backward place.

"I am sure your Lordship has appeals more than the funds at your disposal can adequately meet, but I appeal again to your Lordship's charitable heart for some help for my poverty-stricken, wretched people.