Why does the Scotchman succeed everywhere? Why, in Australia, New Zealand, and all the other British Colonies, do you find him landowner, director of companies, at the head of enterprises of all kinds? Again, why do you find in almost all the factories of Great Britain that the foreman is Scotch?
Ah! it is very simple.
Success is very rarely due to extraordinary circumstances, or to chance, as the social failures are fond of saying.
The Scot is economical, frugal, matter-of-fact, exact, thoroughly to be depended upon, persevering, and hard-working.
He is an early riser; when he earns but half-a-crown a day, he puts by sixpence or a shilling; he minds his own business, and does not meddle with other people's.
Add to these qualities the body that I was speaking of—a body healthy, bony, robust, and rendered impervious to fatigue by the practice of every healthful exercise—and you will understand why the Scotch succeed everywhere.
His religion teaches him to trust in God, and to rely upon his own resources—an eminently practical religion, whose device is:
Help yourself and Heaven will help you.
If a Scotchman were wrecked near an outlandish island in Oceania, I guarantee that you will find him, a few years later, installed as a landed proprietor, exacting rents and taxes from the natives.
Where the English, the Irish especially, will starve, the Scotch will exist; where the English can exist, the Scotch will dine.