VANDALISM.
The new proposals with regard to the water supply of the City of Glasgow are causing, we are not surprised to learn, the utmost fury and consternation throughout Scotland. Criticism has concentrated especially upon two points: the imminent risk of submerging Robert the Bruce's Stone and, of course, the danger of tampering in however slight a degree with the birthplace of Rob Roy. The passive resistance movement has already assumed such proportions that one enterprising publisher feels justified in announcing a new cheap edition of the "Waverley Novels," illustrated from local photographs.
There is, of course, another side to the question. As far as the stone goes it is contended:—
(1) That no one knows why it should have belonged to Robert the Bruce, where he got it or what he did with it when he had it.
(2) That the fact of its being under water would not impair its value in any way and at the same time would give an historical flavour to every glass of mitigated whisky thereafter drunk in the City of Glasgow.
(3) That it could very easily be shifted a bit up the hill if it is desired to keep it dry, and a small permanent umbrella erected over it.
With regard to Rob Roy's birthplace the contention is that it is practically impossible to construct a new reservoir in these days anywhere north of the Tweed which will not interfere in some way with one or other of the places where Rob Roy was born.
It is not only Scotchmen, however, who have been touched to the quick by this irreverent and thoughtless proposal. The whole literary profession is up in arms. A memorial is being prepared to be presented to the Prime Minister, under the heading, "Hands off Rob Roy!" Mr. Punch himself has not been idle in the matter. He has spent the last week in eliciting the opinions of some of our leading writers on this vital question.
Mr. William de Morgan (in a charming, if rather discursive, letter of 32,000 words) demands legislation. "Who knows," he asks, "to what lengths this modern craze for water supplies may go? It is even possible that, within a century, attempts may be made to submerge that delightful little cottage in the county of Essex where Ghost met Ghost."
Mr. Bernard Shaw, interviewed on his doorstep, derided the action of the Glasgow Corporation. No amount of water, he told our representative, could have the least effect in making our modern cities less beastly than they were. For his part, however, he was taking no risks. He had that morning arranged for the erection of a spiked iron fence twenty feet high round the (supposed) birthplace of Eliza Doolittle.