[13] Mr. Spielman has assured us that seventy-five per cent. of the jokes accepted from outsiders by Punch come from Scotland; this, however, only tends to show that Lamb and Smith knew what they were talking about, for it is everywhere admitted that if you want humour, you must make a point of avoiding Punch.
[14] “It may be surely counted not without significance among ethnical phenomena that, though France has all along shown in her language the predominance of the Latin race, three infusions of northern blood had been successively poured into the country: first, the Franks; then the Normans; and, lastly, the Scots. It seems not unreasonable that these helped to communicate to the vivacity and impetuosity of the original race those qualifications of enterprise and endurance which were needed to make up the illustrious history of France.”—The Scot Abroad.
[15] In the Embankment Gardens, London, there is a statue of Burns, on the pedestal of which appears the appended inscription:
“The Poetic Genius of my country found me at the plough and threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes, and rural pleasures of my native soil in my native tongue. I tuned my wild, artless notes as she inspired.”
Now any poet who can babble about his wild, artless notes is beyond praying for. I think this particular monument ought to be taken down.
[16] Albert Leffingwell, M.D., Illegitimacy: Two Studies in Demography.