Feathers in Scotch Caps.
"The railway race to the North, like the race across the Atlantic, has placed beyond challenge that on land as well as on sea Scotch engines break the record."—North British Daily Mail.
Did not Lord Byron anticipate this when he wrote (in Mr. Punch's version of his poem on "Dark Lochnagar"):—
Yes, Caledonia, thy engines are scrumptious,
Though even in England some good ones are seen;
And, if the confession won't render you bumptious,
We sigh for your flyers to far Aberdeen!
But if Caledonia is inclined to boast about its locomotives, let it ponder its tinkers, and learn humility. The Glasgow "Departmental Committee on Habitual Offenders, Vagrants, &c.," reports that the nomad tinkers of Scotland number 1702, and of these 232 "were apprehended for some crime or other during the year." They don't do 151 miles in 167 minutes, like the locomotives—no, they do a couple of months in Glasgow gaol; and they break the laws instead of breaking records. There are 725 tinker children, who get practically no education. Bonnie Scotland, land of grandeur, where the thousand tinkers wander, you must catch these children, and educate them! The adult tinker may be irreclaimable, but at least the children should have a chance of something better—a choice of being soldier, sailor, tinker, or tailor, as they prefer. If, after all, they elect to tink, tink they must.
Dr. John Rhys, of Jesus College, Oxford, quite rose to the occasion at the New Quay, Eisteddfod, and, in his presidential address, made lengthy quotations in Welsh. "Na chaib a rhaw" must mean "nor cares a rap." By the way, the South Wales Daily News, in reporting the proceedings, finishes up by declaring that "the speech was listened to with 'wrapt' attention." As Mrs. Malaprop remarked, "The parcel was enraptured in brown paper."