ARCHIBALD FORBES ON SCOTCHMEN.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1244, 11 January 1883, Page 3

ARCHIBALD FORBES ON SCOTCHMEN.

At a banquet gixen to him at Invercargill on St. Andrew’s Day, Mr Archibald Forbes, in responding to the toast of his health, said that “ in his travels about the world there was one thing that had much puzzled him. He believed it had been equally pnzzling to others. It was: w here did all the y Scotchmen come from ? It seemed to him the world was chiefly populated with Scotchmen, yet when he visited the Old Country it seemed just as full as ever. In Tasmania, where he had found Scotchmen forming the most important part of the population Some of them had come out at their country’s expense. However, the offence committed had in the great majority of instances been nothing more than a little excusable poaching. A gentleman once asked an Irishman if there were any fish in the Lifiey. The answer was that the water was stiff with them. Well, he found that most places he visited were stiff with -Scotchmen. Even in the Sandwich Islands the country of “ brown heath and shaggy wood ” was prominently represented ; the child of a Scotchman was heir apparent to the throne there. Climate had little influence—the Scotchmen went into all latitudes, No doubt the historical soldier who, having died at Aden, is represented as calling for his blankets to be sent to him to keep him warm, was a Scotchman. When the North Pole was reached the explorers would doubtless find a Scotchman sitting with his legs turned round it. There was one thing about a Scotchman that he had always noticed, and that was his shyness and unobtrusive modesty, he never went to the front unless pushed by force—by the vis inertia of , circumstances. Wherever (he the speaker) had gone he found Scotchmen to take him by the hand, and bid him welcome. He had much pleasure in finding himself among so many friends, and would take away with him very pleasant recollections of Invercargill.