Smuggling in the highlands : Account of Highland Whisky Smuggling Stories 1914

Smuggling in the highlands
An Account of Highland Whisky with Smuggling Stories  and Detections

By Ian Macdonald

With Illustrations of Smuggling Bothies, Distilling Utensils, etc

Published by Eneas Mackay, Stirling, 1914. First Edition. Scarce. Hardbacl, 8vo, cloth, 124 pages. illustrated.

Ian Macdonald was a long-serving excise officer who spent much of his career in the Scottish Highlands. The anecdotes in the chapter "Smuggling Stories and Detections" include "An Artful Abriachan Woman", "Foulis Smuggler and Daughter Baffle Officer", and "'Good, Pious Men' as Smugglers". Although Macdonald had a sharp eye for a sensational story, he had a stony view of smuggling, which he considered "a curse to the individual and the community". Much of this work was first read before the Gaelic Society of Inverness during the late 1880s, at a time when whisky smuggling was resurgent in the north of Scotland. It was subsequently printed in the society's paper and later as a series of articles in The Highlander and Celtic Magazine. 

CONDITION
A good copy of this scarce little book. The cloth binding is good but with light signs of age. Endpapers good. All contents present and pages are clean through. All illustrations present and in good order. Overall a good copy.

(BS4/6UP)