The Ayrshire Legatees

Mr. Craig replied, "It's a' very true and sound what Mr. Snodgrass has

observed; but Tam Glen's wean is neither a stranger, nor hungry, nor

naked, but a sturdy brat, that has been rinning its lane for mair than

sax weeks." "Ah!" said Mr. Snodgrass familiarly, "I fear, Mr. Craig,

ye're a Malthusian in your heart." The sanctimonious elder was

thunderstruck at the word. Of many a various shade and modification of

sectarianism he had heard, but the Malthusian heresy was new to his ears,

and awful to his conscience, and he begged Mr. Snodgrass to tell him in

what it chiefly consisted, protesting his innocence of that, and of every

erroneous doctrine.

Mr. Snodgrass happened to regard the opinions of Malthus on Population as

equally contrary to religion and nature, and not at all founded in truth.

"It is evident, that the reproductive principle in the earth and

vegetables, and all things and animals which constitute the means of

subsistence, is much more vigorous than in man. It may be therefore

affirmed, that the multiplication of the means of subsistence is an

effect of the multiplication of population, for the one is augmented in

quantity, by the skill and care of the other," said Mr. Snodgrass,

seizing with avidity this opportunity of stating what he thought on the

subject, although his auditors were but the session-clerk, and two elders

of a country parish. We cannot pursue the train of his argument, but we

should do injustice to the philosophy of Malthus, if we suppressed the

observation which Mr. Daff made at the conclusion. "Gude safe's!" said

the good-natured elder, "if it's true that we breed faster than the Lord

provides for us, we maun drown the poor folks' weans like kittlings."

"Na, na!" exclaimed Mr. Craig, "ye're a' out, neighbour; I see now the

utility of church-censures." "True!" said Mr. Micklewham; "and the

ordination of the stool of repentance, the horrors of which, in the

opinion of the fifteen Lords at Edinburgh, palliated child-murder, is

doubtless a Malthusian institution." But Mr. Snodgrass put an end to the

controversy, by fixing a day for the christening, and telling he would do

his best to procure a good collection, according to the benevolent

suggestion of Mr. Daff. To this cause we are indebted for the next

series of the Pringle correspondence; for, on the day appointed, Miss

Mally Glencairn, Miss Isabella Tod, Mrs. Glibbans and her daughter Becky,

with Miss Nanny Eydent, together with other friends of the minister's

family, dined at the manse, and the conversation being chiefly about the

concerns of the family, the letters were produced and read.