It pangs us fu’ o’ knowledge.
Be’t whisky gill or penny wheep,
Or ony stronger potion,
It never fails, in drinking deep,
To kittle up oor notion
By night or day.”
So sang Scotland’s greatest, Scotland’s sweetest poet; and whether in his heart of hearts he believed the sentiment which in those lines we find so vigorously expressed, he has undoubtedly reflected therein, for the enlightenment of his countrymen through succeeding ages, the popular notion of his own time regarding the potency of the “dram.” In Burns’ day, and for some time thereafter, happiness and whisky were regarded as almost synonymous terms; deep drinking was fashionable; and “the last beside his chair to fa’” was verily the hero of the social community. “We’re happiest when we’re fou,” is a well-worn proverb. “We’ll aye sit an’ tipple owre a wee drappie o’t,” croons an old song-writer, evidently impressed with the conviction that a man could not be better occupied than in consuming malt liquors. “Freedom and whisky gang thegither—tak’ aff your dram!” shouts Burns. Yes. But the same sweet singer has fervidly prayed—
“Oh, wad some power the giftie gi’e us,
To see oursel’s as ithers see us.”
And happily, whilst the shout is going in at the one ear and out at the other—is failing to command obedience—the prayer is gradually being answered. Old customs, like old prejudices, no matter how absurd they may be, die hard; but with the general advance of education in Scotland, and the dissemination of cheap and healthy literature, the people are becoming day by day more distinctly convinced of the many ludicrous absurdities connected with our social habits, particularly with the old-fashioned ideas relating to hospitality and conviviality, and with the practice of persistent and indiscriminate dram-drinking. A man may be merry nowadays without being “half fou,” and yet not be considered “daft,” and we have been realising that there are other ways of hospitably entertaining a friend than by filling him to the chin with whisky. Our dram-drinking tendencies have made us the butt of the Continental jokist, and no wonder. How utterly absurd the practice in general has been—in many instances how highly humorous! Your teetotal lecturer, I have often thought, dwells too frequently on the tragedy of the subject. It has a tragic side, no doubt, and a woefully pathetic one; but very much connected with it, like the antics of a half-tipsy individual, is ludicrously humorous, and needs only to be dangled before the eye of sober sense to render the persistent and indiscriminate participator more than half-ashamed of his connection with it. Let our active teetotallers instruct themselves fairly in the art of photography, and go around photographing respectably-dressed persons in their various stages of intoxication, afterwards circulating copies of the photos amongst the subject’s friends, being careful not to neglect sending a few to the tippler himself, and they will do more service to the temperance cause in one month than perhaps all the labour of their lives has hitherto achieved. But to come directly to look at the humours of dram-drinking. What have been the facts of the case? Whisky has been made the cure for all diseases, and the “saw for a’ sairs.” Was Sandy cold, he took a dram to warm him. Was he hot, he took a dram to cool himself. Did he feel hungry, and the dinner not quite ready, he took a dram to appease his appetite. Did he not feel very hungry when dinner was set before him, he took a dram to sharpen his appetite, and another one after dinner to aid his digestion. Was he sad, he took a dram to make him “bear his heart abune.” Was he merry, he took a dram to tone himself down, or to increase the jollity according as he might desire. Did he feel sleepy, a dram was called in to hold him wide-a-wake. Did he feel too wide-a-wake, he required a dram to induce sleep. Did he drink so much at night that he had a headache in the morning he required “a hair more of the dog that bit him,” and so on. Was there a birth in the family, the dram had to circulate to handsel the young Scot. The “kirstenin’” had equal honour awarded it. The “waddin’,” the “lyke-wake,” the “burial,” the “foondin’,” the “hoose-heatin’,” the “foy,” the “maiden,” and dozens of inevitable occasions demanded that the “grey-beard” should be filled and emptied within a brief space of time. Did Sandy buy a cow, he “stood a dram;” did he sell a cow he did the same. There is an old woman still living in Dundee who some years ago actually went and took a dram to herself because her cat had died. It was called in to solder every bargain, and the “luck-penny,” and the “arle-penny,” and the “Queen’s-shilling” demanded in the enlistment of every soldier, meant just so much money to be spent in drink which should be consumed on the spot. Not of “Tam o’ Shanter” alone might it be said that “ilka melder wi’ the miller he drank as lang as he had siller; that ilka naig was ca’d a shoe on, the smith an’ he got roarin’ fou on.” Two friends could not meet and part in town or country but there had to be a dram both given and taken, or the one would have suspected the other of entertaining a grudge towards him. It was the unequivocal pledge of friendship, and “surely you’ll be your pint-stoup, and surely I’ll be mine,” was the spirit principle of their social creed. Were quarrels made over the dram they had to be settled over it also—