THE CULT OF BURNS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1925, Page 4

THE CULT OF BURNS

It is the way of the cynics to attribute Burns enthusiasm on January 2o to the unholy joy oi the Scot in an orgv of conviviality. To meet and toast “The linmoiltal Memory” in barley brec, to cat haggis served with whisky neat, and to sing boisterously about “a dHippie in our e'o” is theii pitiful notion of a Burns night. The Scot has no need to form Burns clubs and appropriate the poet's birthday as an excuse for a dram. If lie needed such pretexts he might find one for every day in the year out of the multitude of Scottish poets. Burns is a figure apart, and the hundreds of clubs that meet throughout the world—even in the Prohibitionist United States—are an unexampled tribute ol affection. The songs of Burns are universal in fiieir appeal. They are sung in strange lands and in strange tongues. Yet it is his lyric verse that has done most of all in his own country to preserve what remains of his native Doric. Even the Burns Club of London has its Vernacular Circle, ami many others throughout England strive to keep the “mitlier tongue” alive in the land. Burns clubs in England number thousands of members, and cover the country from Plymouth to Newcastle. Tn Carlisle, which has only about 1,700 Scotsmen in its population, thenarc no fewer than three Burns Clubs. They flourish in Liverpool, Birmingham, Hull, Nottingham, Derby, Sunderland, and many small English towns. Dublin, Belfast, ami Londonderry are among their Irish strongholds. Abroad you will find Burns clubs in India and Chinn; in Africa from Capetown up to .Johannesburg and beyond; in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. There are at least two in Sydney, two in Winnipeg, and a little group of them in British Columbia. The United States abounds in them from St. Louis to San Francisco, from Chattanooga to Colorado Springs. But the great stronghold of Burns clubs is Glasgow. Out of the total of well over three hundred affiliated to the Burns Federation, fifty have their home in Glasgow. Burns’s pages have been closely searched for titles fo distinguish them, and among the names of these Glasgow clubs are the Tam o’ Shunter, Jolly Coggnrs, Haggis, and The Chonies.

Paisley 1 isivc seven, Kilmarnock six, Hamilton live. Dumfries and Edinburgh four, ami Greenock three. To Greenock, "here not long ago a monument was erected to Highland Mary, belongs the distinction of founding flic mother-club ns'far back as 1802. Kilmarnock comes next in seniority, its first club dating from 1808. The Burns Club of London was not established till 1808.