‘Mair kindness, less lip,
Mair corn, less whip,’
might well be hung up in every stable to-day, for certainly if our poor dumb servants were treated a little more kindly, they would need less shouting and bawling at, and when properly fed, the whip becomes but an ornament.
‘Onny shufflin’ taal diz ti shak off a needy relation, bud it dizn’t mak ’t reet foor ’em ti squander brass ti greease thersens wi’,’ said an old body who had asked assistance from a well-to-do sister, but who had been sent empty away with a most frivolous excuse. It seems her sister had shortly afterwards given a handsome donation at the laying of a foundation-stone upon which her name had been carved. ‘Shufflin’ taal’ is equal to ’half a lie,’ or, to put it in a milder form, ‘a poor excuse.’ ‘To shak off’ is ’to refuse’; and ’to grease yersen’ is ’to please oneself,’ ‘to satisfy one’s vanity.’ The saying might be put this way: ‘By the rich, any poor excuse is considered good enough to refuse help to a needy relation, but it is never just, whilst such are in want, to spend money in tickling their own vanity.’
‘T’ week ’ez tweea Mundaays foor t’ hoss ’at ligs ower Sundaay,’ implies that a Sunday’s rest gives greater energy.
‘Nivver tackle what ya caan’t deea, bud allus deea what ya tackle,’ is certainly an aphorism we should all do well to mark; the caution and advice which it contains, if acted upon, spells success in golden characters. ‘Do not undertake anything beyond either your capabilities or resources, but whatever you once set your hand to, carry it through.’
At a funeral feast where one individual was rather too ready in handing the cake and wine round, one old body was overheard to say, ‘He mebbe wadn’t ‘ been seea riddy wi’ t’ plate an’ bottle ’ed he been iv his awn hoos, bud it maistly happens ’at them ’at’s seea free wiv uther fau’k’s hay, are varra skinny wi’ ther awn corn.’ That many people are exceedingly generous in dispensing the charity of others, and very careful in parting with anything of their own, is a fact too patent to dispute.
‘T’ chap ’at fishes for his breccus off’ns ’ez ti wait foor his dinner,’ and ‘A blinnd chap owt nivver ti lake wiv a crab whahl it’s boil’d,’ point their own moral.
At Great Ayton two neighbours were discussing one who had not long been a resident. ‘Sha’s gitten a pianer noo, an’ it’s nobbut t’ other daay ’at sha bowt hersen new shades’ (blinds) ‘foor ivvery windther i’ t’ hoos. Wheer sha gits t’ brass ti pay foor all t’ new-fengl’d things ’at cum up, Ah deean’t knaw, bud sha queerly cam, an’ sha’ll queerly gan; an’ Ah’ll tell tha what, a hoos gitten tigither by habs an’ nabs, an’ yan’s sticks paid foor afoor they’re fetched in, is comfortabler ’an yan filled wi’ flee-by-neet stuff;’ i.e. furniture, &c., got together at odd times and in odd ways, and paid for at the time, affords more comfort than possessing a houseful of things which possibly will have to be removed during the night to escape the landlord.
‘T’ yard’s weel swept wiv a lent bizzum;’ or, one does not fail to get the most out of any article which another has lent us. The following doggerel gives a phase of human nature common to all mankind:—