Sandy may have been to hang his head for honest poverty, he ill relishes its being flung in his face. “A sooth bourd is nae bourd,” says the old proverb; but now, what with tourists, and trade, and Scotsmen who come back again, bringing the spoils of the world with them, the reproach of poverty ceases to be so sore a one.
Though in the eyes of busy Glasgow Edinburgh may pass as a retired capital, living on its means of attraction, it has in fact several industries from which to earn a livelihood. Along with the lodging and amusing of strangers, it must do a good business in the tartans, pebbles, silver-work, and other showy wares displayed in Princes Street shop windows. “Edinbury Rock,” done up in tartan wrappers, is much pressed upon the notice of tourists; the same indeed being sold in other towns under their own name. As for shortbread, scones, biscuits, and other manufactures of the “Land of Cakes,” these have invaded London, where every baker not a German is like to be a Scot. It will be noted by Cockney revilers as a proof of Scotch thriftiness, which might bear another interpretation, that what costs a penny in a London baker’s shop is here sold for a halfpenny. Well known to strangers are the Princes Street confectioners’ shops, several of them extensive restaurants like that one which, crowning its storeys of accommodation, has a roof garden looking upon the Castle opposite.
The staple trades of Edinburgh have come to be printing and publishing, and, as the nettle grows near the dock, brewing and distilling. The great Scottish publishing firms have of late years shown a tendency to gravitate towards London; but more than one still keeps its headquarters here, beside some of the largest and best printing establishments in the kingdom. It must be confessed that what is spoken of as “the trade,” is whisky, too much consumed about the premises, as visitors are apt to note. The worst shame a Scotsman need take for Scotland is on account of what Englishmen specially distinguish as “Scotch.” I never heard sadder jest than the laughing comment of a group of Dundee lasses, as they passed a braw lad wallowing in the gutter at mid-day—“He’s having his holidays!” Yet as to this reproach, something might be said in plea for mitigation of judgment. Something to the purpose was said by that experienced toper who explained how “whusky makes ye drunk before ye are fu’, but yill makes ye fu’ before ye are drunk.” The whisky drunk by the lower classes here is a demon that takes no disguise. It seems that, while there is more brutal intoxication in Scotland, there may be less toping sottishness than in England. Men seen so helplessly overcome at the ninth hour of a holiday are perhaps of ordinarily sober habits, all the more readily affected by occasional indulgence in fiery spirit. A woman frequenting public-houses implies a lower depth of degradation. In the north, a larger proportion of the population are abstainers; young people and the class of domestic servants for instance, drink water where in English families they would expect beer. In all classes, there are still too many Scotsmen religious in the worship of their native Bacchus, vulgar and violent deity as he is; but every year adds to the number of Protestants against this perverted fanaticism. By the Forbes Mackenzie Act, all public-houses are