On the joys of stonebreaking...

Further to the previous entry, this is a drawing of a 'stonebreaker.' When I did a study of a small Scottish village that was 'cleared' (in 1848) of its population, one of the people thus dispossessed (Duncan McLean) became (according to the 1851 Census) a 'stonebreaker.' The drawing was done about 1830 by Walter Geikie. Mr Geikie was deaf. At the time, deaf people were viewed as 'morons.' Walter Geikie was, in his time, proof positive that this assessment was wrong.