Dublin.
_Slavery in Scotland_ (Vol. v., p. 29.).--To the question of E. F. L.,
as to what time the custom of mitigating the punishment of condemned
Scottish criminals to perpetual servitude was done away with, I cannot
at present give a definite answer; but perhaps the following curious
extract from the _Decisions_ of Fountainhall may be interesting to
enquirers on this subject:--
"Reid, the _Mountebank_, pursues Scot of Harden and his Lady, for
stealing away from him a little Girl, called the _Tumbling
Lassie_, that danced upon his stage; and he claimed damages, and
produced a contract, whereby he _bought her from her mother_, for
£30 Scots. But _we have no Slaves in Scotland_, and mothers cannot
sell their bairns; and physicians attested the employment of
tumbling would kill her; and her joints were now grown stiff, and
she declined to return; though she was at least a 'prentice, and
so could not run away from her master; yet some cited Moses's Law,
that if a servant shelter himself with thee, against his master's
cruelty, thou shalt surely not deliver him up. The lords,
_renitente cancellario_, assoilzied Harden, on the 27th January
(1687)."--Vol. i. p. 439.