ballast, but of the superfluous sail, of the State. Nor should it
be difficult to render the fact evident to all. In one of our northern
burghs--Dingwall--a majority of the Town Council lately memorialized
the Directors of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in exactly the same
vein as the majority of our Edinburgh Town Council. So extreme a step
seemed rather extraordinary for Ross-shire; and a gentleman of the
burgh, one of the voters, convinced that the officials were far indeed
from representing their constituency, shrewdly set himself to
demonstrate the real state of the case. First he possessed himself of
an accredited list of the voters; and then, with a memorial addressed
to the Directors, strongly condemnatory of the conduct of the Council,
he called upon every voter in the burgh who had not taken the opposite
side in the character of a councillor, with the exception of two,
whose views he had previously ascertained to be unfavourable. And
what, thinks our reader, was the result? Seven councillors had voted
on the anti-Sabbatarian side; and the provost, for himself and the
Council, had afterwards signed the memorial. And of the voters
outside, four were found to make common cause with them. Two more did
not make common cause with them, but were not prepared to condemn
them, and so did not sign. There were thus fourteen in all who were
either not opposed to the running of Sabbath trains, or who were at
least not disposed openly to denounce the parties who had memorialized
the Directors, in the name of the burgh, to the effect that Sabbath
trains should be run. Of the other electors, ten were non-resident,
five more were out of town at the time, three had fallen out of
possession since the roll had been made up, and one was dead. And all
the others, amounting to sixty-nine in number, at once signed the
document condemnatory of the Council, and were happy to have an
opportunity of doing so. The available votes of the burgh were opposed
to those of their pseudo-representatives in the proportion of nearly
six to one.

In the parliamentary burgh of Cromarty an almost similar experiment
was made. There, however, though the movement party had composed the
majority of the Council only a few years since, they had been cast out
of office, partly through a strong reaction which had taken place
against them, partly in consequence of a quarrel among themselves. And
so the existing Town Council took the initiative in memorializ