ich of them can lure away the greatest number of our
peasantry. The latest candidate for our rural youth is the State of
Virginia, the legislature of which has voted a large sum of money to
pay the expenses of two delegates, who are at work in the East of
Scotland, hunting for likely emigrants. These Virginian delegates--Mr.
Koiner and Col. Talliafer--paid the passage-money of over a hundred
stalwart lads from Lochtayside in the autumn of 1906.

No one who has the opportunity of travelling through Scotland can fail
to be struck by the absolute frenzy for emigration that exists
everywhere. There is a constant stream of emigrants from all our
agricultural counties to the wide plains of Canada. That great colony is
being "boomed" in a most energetic way. In Sutherlandshire, I saw a
large van, with placards and specimens of Canadian produce, being driven
through Strath Halladale, to tempt the crofters over the deep. I have
also, at the railway stations in the North, beheld heart-rending scenes
of parting as the young fellows said good-bye to their parents and
friends:

"Who could guess
If ever more should meet these mutual eyes."[9]

[9] Such emigration has, of course, nothing to do with the
systematic work instituted by Mr. William Quarrier of Bridge of
Weir. That devout philanthropist occupied himself with the waifs
and strays of Glasgow, taught them trades, and sent large numbers
of them to the colonies to learn farming. One Saturday, in 1907,
I saw a hundred and twenty of these lads, who were on Bridge of
Weir platform waiting for the train. The scene was pathetic in
the extreme--enough to melt a heart of nether millstone. Many of
the lads were in tears as they answered the roll-call for the
last time. In the afternoon they (and over two thousand
emigrants) left the Clyde, amid sobs, cheers, and the waving of
multitudinous handkerchiefs. These boys go, in the first
instance, to Brockville, in the province of Ontario, whence they
are distributed out among the Canadian farmers.

VILLAGE HALLS.

In most of the places I have visited, the school-house is the only
available hall for public meetings. Now, a school-room, with its small,
cramped seats, its lack of platform, and its defective ventilation, is
not well adapted for large gatherings. No man likes to speak _up to the
waist in audience_, under a low roof, and in stifling air.