SCOTLAND’S CHARACTERISTICS.

Evening Star, Issue 4069, 11 March 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

SCOTLAND’S CHARACTERISTICS.

The following humorous speech was made by Lord Roseberry at the Sixth anniversary of the London Scottish Corporation in December last :■ — “ I have studied the speeches of my predecessors with some attention, and. the conclusion I came to that it is usual to begin this toast with a’few prefatory remarks on the true Scottish national character. With a view to this performance I spared neither time nor expense. I went over all the works which treat of Scotland with much discernment and humor. I made myself acquainted with their contents, and as I discovered that they came to a tolerably uuauimous opinion about Scotland and the Scotch, I feel in a position to place these conclusions before yon with unhesitating confidence ; and if some parts of these conclusions should not be as flattering to yourselves, or to myself, as we should wish, yet you must remember the example of the Roman Emperors, who, in the midst oftheir greatest triumph always had a slave present to remind them they were mortal. (Cheers.) I will now proceed to deal with the country as it is. We all know that the only scenery worth watching in Scotland is the highroad to England. (Loud laughter.) As to the climate, when other nations are deluged with rain storms, they look up to heaven and call it a Scotch mist (laughter) and our ouly national products are, it is well known, herrings and Liberal members of Parliament. (Loud and continued' laughter.) Just a hundred years ago Churchill, who was a very keen observer, said that the only animal which could live in Scotland was the chameleon, because it lived upon air. (Laughter.) By a judicious course of natural selection we have, since added the rabbit-slaughter)— which devours our crops, and the innkeeper, who devours the tourists., (Renewed laughter.) • Our political affairs are not worthy the attention of the British Ministry, Our police are not worthy a pension. Oqr moral qualities are as well known as we are known tP be pushing and extremely penurious. I have now, in the conclusion of this head, to call attention to our physical qualities, which really notorious. (Laughter and cheers.) Our cheekboues are high, - our faces are freckled, and our hair red. (Much laughter.) Oh both sides have I endeavored to present to you as faithfully as I could that which was expected in the Scotch character. But we ought uot to shut our eyes to patent truths. Heretofore it has been said that ’England Las been treated by Scotchmen as the corn-field in other countries by the locust—(laughter)—that Scotchmen setile down upon her as the devourer of her substance. It has been said that wherever you find in any neighborhood a human being who is specially prosperous, that -human being is a Scotchman.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) But, gentlemen, I have mentjoned one belief. 1 inquired |nto the other and opposite belief also, and wijl tell you briefly what was the result. 1 will take you

back further than three centuries—(laughter)—because the history of the two countries before that time seems to have consisted of the mutual and forcible exchange of cattle. —(Much We next have to be S-ateful for the consideration shown by ueen Elizabeth for our feelings in cutting cff the head of Mary Queen of Scots. The next point of contact between the two countries was when C'harfes I. was good enough to send down to us a liturgy, and with it an army of soldiers. His sou, Charles the Second, improving on this, sent down his brother James, Duke of York, to teach us hoW, to use the boot and thumbikins —a fashion which, like all imported fashions, did not remain long in Scotland. We now arrive at the period of William the Third, the Deliverer; as he was called, though what he. sought to deliver us from 1 know not, except, possibly, the dangers of over-popu ! at'ioii —(laughter) —as illustrated in the Massacre of Glencoe. We then come to the Union under Queen Anne—a union followed in a few years after by the Scotch members of Parliament going in a body to the Sovereign to complain of the contempt and contumely by which they were treated Toy the English. Thirty years later, Northern 'men Scotchmen were Ministers of the Crown, but amid so much unpopularity that Lord Bute lost his place as Prime Minister almost as soon as he got upon his logs; and now, coming down to our own times, we find ourselves oppressed by school boards and compulsory education, while our brethren of the South are allowed to exist in freedom-and ignorance.—(Cheers and laughter.) You may well now ask why I have indulged in the recital of our wrongs.' It is not to maim for us political Home Rule —(laughter)—we should not know what'to do with it—but it is to point out to any of our Southern brethren present with us that a people who have lived under such conditions as these require material assistance at their hands.—(Great cheers, and laughter.) Our nation is so accustomed to prosper wherever it is found that our prosperity is often i-pokeuof as our reproach. I think, on the other hand, that it is due to the circumstance that a Scotchman, wherever he may be found, knows how to accommodate himself to circumstances, and is prepared, to take his step on the first rung of the ladder.