Aational Characteristics.

Colonist, Issue 19, 25 December 1857, Page 4

Aational Characteristics.

English and Scotch.—Unless whiske}''drinking be a virtue north of the Tweed, it is difficult to make out the assumption of superior morality for the people of Scotland. If the traveller Compare the indications of civilisation in the middle and lower classes of the English and Scotch, he will find himself obliged to confess that there is a deficiency north of the Tweed, especially among the female half of the community, on whom civilisation mainly depends, in those smaller usages, habits, and ways of living,, which add to the comfort and wellbeing of common-civilised life.' There is a sluttishness about, the womankind and all i the women's work in a Scotch dwelling of the lower class family, which stands remarkably in contrast with the order, regularity, tidiness* and cleaning, dusting, and scouring propensities of the housewives of the same class in any English town or village. The Scotch people of the middle and lower classes have more and better school in- i Btructipn, are more religious, and more intellectual in their religion, more frugal and prudent, except in the use of spirituous liquors; .but the English of the same class live in a more civilised way,^ are of mdre refined and'"civilised habits, are better brought up, although worse educated. Their manners, towards each other, their habits of regard for others, and their self-respect, and the' regularity, nicety, and spirit of order in their households which proceed from self-respect, are more cultivated. The English females of the class referred to are brought up in their little brick tenements to keep a cleaner and more cheerful house, and a more regular housekeeping, on earnings as small as the means of the same class of labourers and tradesmen in Scotland. The table and tablecloth, the plate and knife and fork,, are laid out with decent regularity and cleanliness, even in the poorest dwelling of the working-man, should it only be to grace a dinner of bread and cheese. -What a routing, and driving, and bawling, and scolding, all the morning, in a • sma Scotch family that keeps but one bare-legged servant lassie, before things are got into any decent order! In England, in a small tradesman's or working man's family, you wonder how the housework of the female—thef sweeping, cleaning, bedn&king, cooking, and such work is done so quietly; and so nicely, with only the wife's pair of hands^ All is in order, as if the fairy folk had been helping all night with the and rubbing.— Laing's Social State of -Ewope,: \ The v Fsenoh- and- English.—The ]^rich,^unriya}led in scientific, precision, are strikeni with^impotence when they approach the higher regions of poetical or

spiritual thought.. Pre-eminent as a milir,; tary people, they have signally'failed in all; attempts to add naval success to their other achievements. And with the thoughts of the whole people, occupied for sixty years in the search after "that abstract perfection in Goyerment" (which as Canning remarked, is not an object of reasonable, pursuit, because it is not one of possible attainment) ; and with as fair a field, and as unimpeded a career as was ever vouchsafed to any nation in Europe, they are actually at the present time no nearer than •• at the beginning to the realisation of their ideal. While the English, on the other • hand—loathing abstract thought, looking with suspicion or contempt on all endeavours after scientific accuracy in moral or political questions, empiric tentative, often blundering, always unsystematic, alternately sleeping in smiling apathy, and awakening with a panic start —now straining at the smallest hardship, now swallowing the most monstrous oppression; now neglecting the growth of the most frightful evils, now arousing themselves to the most microscopic vigilance; .now wretched, frantic, and remorseful, if a criminal is harshly treated, or a pauper inadequately fed; now contemplating with serene indifference . the grinding misery of thousands ; nevertheless have contrived to advance with magical rapidity in the material arts of life; and to proceed, though at a far slower rate, with the remedy of public ills and the diffusion of social welfare. Surrounded by difficulties, they succeed in maintaining their freedom unimpaired, and even confirmed ; and in making almost yearly some steps —halting, and uncertain as they are—towards a better and a wiser Government.— Edinburgh Review. :