WHY SCOTCHMEN GET ON.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,--The article on Scotchmen in last Saturday's Spectator being one of very great interest to the people of Scotland, and contain- ing theories and arguments which require explanation or venti- lation, I have taken the liberty of addressing you on the subject. Whether the article was intended as a compliment or a cut to Scotland I cannot divine, but I have a strong impression it is either the one or the other. If a compliment, it is a left-handed one ; if 4 cut, it is a pill so covered over with sugar that the patient is deceived as to its real taste. It is evident that your contributor has travelled a good deal, but I think it is quite as evident that he had but one Scotchman in his mind's eye when he wrote the article. "Of the four classes of British emigrants, the Irish, when not reckless, are incomparably the ' closest ;' the Welsh stand next, and the Scotchman is only careful by the side of the quick-spending Englishman." Such is the ex- perience of your contributor, but it is not mine ; for I have resided long in both England and Scotland, and I have not yet found the quick-spending Englishman—it has almost invariably (the exception being among the lower orders) been the quick-spending Irishman who has come across my path. The Englishman was always as " careful" as the Scotch- man. "At home the Scotchman is apt to be less educated than the Englishman, his experience being a little narrower, and his book learning more limited." His experience, I should fancy, would at home be a great deal narrower, but how his book learning should be more limited is for your contributor to explain. Again, the Scot "is no doubt persevering and patient, more patient and more persevering than most men, but he does not exhibit those qualities in a greater degree than the Englishman." Here, again, I join issue with your contributor. A friend of mine—a barrister, and an ornament to the London Press,--insists that the Scottish people are so careful in their language even that they will never answer directly a direct question ; while another friend—a sensible man, a manufacturer, and having an office within earshot of the roar of Fleet Street—insists that black-haired Scotchmen are good, and light-haired Scotchmen bad! But my friends are like unto your contributor; they speak from a very limited experience, and they never resided in Scotland,—as it is possible, however, your con- tributor may have done. But did it never strike you that a Scotchman was more persevering than an Englishman, simply on account of the difference in the diet and up-bringing of each? Did it never strike you that an English child is very clever, and a Scotch child very dull ; that an English youth is very polite and a Scotch youth very vulgar ; that an English- man is very much afflicted with what your contributor calls an "inveterate proclivity to chaff," while a Scotchman always prefers work to chaff? And all these are simply matters brought about by the diet of each nation. The men of the one country are no better workers than those of the other, but the Scotch make their meals second to their work, and they care less for the particular dish of which they are to partake, and still less for the particular company in which they are to partake of it than the English. It appears to me simply a matter of how you feed your children. Beer them, overfeed them, let them "put their oar" into the conversation of their seniors and superiors, and you have clever bairns, polite youths, and " chaffing " men. But you have not men possessing so much perseverance, or able to get through work so speedily, as those who have been more etriCtlY-
sternly, if-you will—brought up as to home diet and home con- versation.
The other parts of your " Scotch " article would take up far more time than I could afford for their discussion, and far more space than you would grant me for such a purpose. Conse- quently I pass over the homologated opinion that "Scotchmen make the best slavedrivers," and the assertion that "the Scotch have not given us many great statesmen ;" but that Scotchmen are inferior journalists, or that the newspaper press of Scotland is in any way inferior to that of England, I am inclined to question. Take the east of Scotland, and tell me if there are, even in London, daily newspapers conducted with greater enterprise and ability than the Scotsman and the Daily Review in Edinburgh. Take the west of Scotland, and let me know where in English small towns there are better journals than the Ayrshire Express and the Ayr Observer. Take the north, and give me better than the Inverness Courier, the Inverness Advertiser, and the Banffshire Journal ; and the south, and give me a better English provincial than the Dum- fries Courier. It is true the English provinces have their Manches- ter Guardian and the Examiner, but the Scotch have the Glasgow Herald and the Daily Mail.
Last, but not least, your contributor says he "could not imagine a Scotch Shakespeare ;" let him try to imagine another English.— [Nonsense about diet. Oatmeal will not make perseverance, though it may make bone. Both our correspondents mistake our meaning about journalism. Scotch journalists are very good journalists, but, in England, Scotchmen do not beat Englishmen in journalism, as they do in most departments of life.—En. Spectator.]
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