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—

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—

In houses of quality, as late as the end of last century, it was the custom to keep a household officer, whose duty it was to prevent the drunk guests from choking. Old Henry Mackenzie, the author of The Man of Feeling, Lord Cockburn tells, was once at a festival at Kilravock Castle, towards the close of which the exhausted topers sank gradually back and down on their chairs, till little of them was seen above the table but their noses; at last they disappeared altogether and fell on the floor. Those who were too far gone lay still there from necessity; while those who, like the Man of Feeling, were glad of a pretence for escaping, fell into a dose from policy. While Mackenzie was in this state he was alarmed by feeling a hand working about his throat, and called out, when a voice answered, “Dinna be fear’d, sir; its me.” “And who are you?” “I’m the lad that lowses the graavats.”

It was employed, I have said, as the cure for all diseases, and the “saw for a’ sairs;” and the practice finds apt illustration in the story of a schoolmaster who had been appointed to “teach the young idea” in a sparsely populated country district. Sallying forth one day soon after his settlement in the neighbourhood to spy out the land, and discover whether or not he was within a day’s march of any person of intelligence, he came up, after walking about two miles, to a man breaking stones by the roadside. Interrogating the workman as to the amenities of the locality in general, the dominie proceeded to make enquiries in particular, and said—

“How far distant is the nearest minister?”

“Ou, about four mile,” said the roadman.

“Indeed. And how far are we from a doctor?”

“Ten mile an’ a bittock, e’en as the craw flees,” replied the roadman.

“Dear me, that’s very awkward. How do you do when anyone turns suddenly ill?”

“Ou, just gi’e him a gless o’ whisky.”

“But if a glass of whisky has not the desired effect; what then?”

“We just gi’e him anither ane.”

“But if two does not set him right?”

“Weel, just gi’e him three.”

“But if neither three nor four either will cure him?”

“Weel, then, fill him fou, and put him till his bed.”

“Yes; but if filling him fou does not even suffice?”

“Weel, just lat him lie in his bed and drink until he’s better.”

“Yes, yes, my friend, but if whisky administered to him in any quantity will not cure him?”

“Ou, weel, then, sir,” gravely replied the roadman, “if whisky winna cure a man, he’s no worth curin’, an’ may weel be latten slip.”

Oh, they had sublime confidence in the “dram” as a revivifying agent, and no mistake about it! Indeed, it was regarded in some quarters as a necessity to existence. And “be carefu’ o’ the mercies” was a stock phrase relating to it. The Highlander, content to pray for “a mountain of snuff,” wanted “oceans o’ whisky.” It was called in to act as “an eye-opener,” and to serve also as “a night-cap.”

So regularly had a certain Scotch laird used it in the latter capacity, that once in his lifetime—so he said himself—he “got an awfu’ fricht.” “We ran short o’ the mercies,” said he, “and I had to gang to my bed sober. I dinna feel ony the waur the day; but, Lodsake, man, I got an awfu’ fricht.”

A well-known Scotch laird of the old school, Dean Ramsay tells us, expressed himself with great indignation when someone charged hard drinking with having actually killed people. “Na, na,” said he; “I never knew onybody that was killed wi’ drinking, but I hae kenned some that dee’d in the training.”

So have we all, laird—a great many! And yet the students have been numerous and persistent. That Highlander who, when the minister shook his reverend head towards him, and said, “Whisky is a bad, bad thing, Donald,” replied, “Ay, sir, especially bad whisky,” thought, no doubt, that he had made a concession in opinion that would greatly mollify his clerical mentor. Many of your tipplers possessed a rough and ready wit, and from that fact no little humour has sprung. A Perthshire blacksmith, whom I myself knew intimately, was once remonstrated with by the Free Church minister who lived near by anent his frequent and excessive indulgences.

“Was ye ever drunk, sir?” inquired the smith.

“No, Donald,” said the minister, “I am glad to say I never was.”

“I thocht as muckle,” said the smith; “for, man, if ye was ance richt drunk, ye wad never like to be sober a’ your days again.”

“There’s death in the cup!” exclaimed a violent teetotal lecturer as he rushed up to where an old farmer was carefully toning his dram with water from a huge decanter. More of the pura had flowed forth than was intended, and eyeing his glass critically, “Hech, an’ I think ye’re richt, freend,” was the response, “for I’ve droon’d the miller.”

“There is good whusky, and there is better whusky,” said an old Highlander, “but there never yet was bad whusky.” Many Lowlanders act as if they held the same opinion.

“You’re just a sot, man, John,” once said a wife to her tippling husband; “ye ha’e drucken a hoose in your time.”

“Ah, weel, Kate, I think its been a thack ane,” was the reply; “an’ there’s some o’ the stoure in my throat yet.”

“It’s an awful thing that drink,” exclaimed a clergyman, when the barber, who was visibly affected, had drawn blood from his face for the third time.

“Ay,” replied the tonsorial artist, with a wicked leer in his eye, “it mak’s the skin tender.”

Told that whisky was a slow poison; “It maun be awfu’ slow, then,” said an old veteran, “for I’ve toothfu’d an’ toothfu’d awa’ at it this saxty year, an’ I’m aye livin’ yet.”

Neil Gow honestly declared that, when in a certain condition, “it wasna the length o’ the road, but the breadth o’t,” that bothered him. Another, “wha leeward whiles against his will” was taking “a bicker,” on being asked by a passing acquaintance if he was getting home, eloquently replied in the word, “Whiles.”

“You are reeling, Janet,” remarked a country parson, meeting one of his parishioners carrying more sail than ballast, as a preliminary to lecturing her on the evils of her conduct.

“Troth, an’ I canna aye be spinnin’, sir,” returned she, casting anchor in the middle of the road, and leering blandly up into the face of her interrogator.

“You do not seem to catch my meaning clearly, Janet,” continued the divine. “Do you know where drunkards, go?”

“Indeed, they generally gang whaur they get the whisky cheapest and best, sir.”

“Yes, Janet, but there is another place where they go. They go where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

“Humph!” sneered the case-hardened old sinner. “They can gnash teeth that have teeth to gnash. I hav’na had but a’e stump this forty year.”

A Perthshire village tradesman, recently deceased, as a rule “took a drappie mair than was gude for him” when he visited the county town. Indeed, he occasionally got “on the batter” and did not return home until after the lapse of several days. Returning from one of these “bouts” his wife met him in the door with the question, “Whaur ha’e ye been a’ this time?”

“Perth,” was the sententious reply.

“Perth!” echoed the wife. “An’ what was ye doin’ sae lang at Perth? Nae mortal man could be doin’ gude stayin’ in Perth for three hale days on end.”

“Awa! an’ no haiver, woman,” was the dry reply; “plenty o’ fouk stay a’ their days in Perth an’ do brawly.”

The parish minister, in reproving this same character warned him that there would be a day of reckoning for it all yet. “I wish a day may do it, sir,” said the immovable Peter, “it’ll tak’ a day an’ a hauf I doubt. Deed, a day an’ a hauf, sir, ilka minute o’t,” and leisurely moved on.

One festive old Scot recently visited another in the English capital. They had not met before for many years, and a good deal of hot water and sugar joined by a corresponding quantity of “barley bree” was stowed away within their waistcoats before it was considered that full justice had been done to the occasion. By this time the night was well advanced, and the visitor began to speak of making tracks for his hotel, when a cab was accordingly called and brought to the door. Now came the supreme moment of parting, and the host having led his friend by the arm in devious fashion to the head of the stair, halted and solemnly addressed him. “John,” said he, “I winna gang doon the stair mysel’ for fear I mayna get up again. I’m real gled to have seen you, and we’ve had a grand nicht. Good-nicht, John, good-nicht; and mind your feet on the stair. And John, hark ye! when ye gang oot at the door you’ll see twa cabs, but tak’ the first ane—the tither ane’s no’ there.”

John M’Nab, though withal an industrious crofter, got “roarin’ fou” every time he went to Perth, which was once a fortnight or so, and like every other person who so conducted himself, found always some excuse for his behaviour, however far-fetched it might be. John could not have a glass, as his wife said, but “a’ the toon boot ken, for he was ane o’ the singing kind, an’ waukened a’ the country-side.”

On the morning which succeeded one of his periodical “bursts,” the minister happening to pass just as John was watering the cow at the burn a little beyond the door of his house, saw, as he thought, in the incident a fine opportunity for improving the occasion.

“Ah, John,” said he, “you see how Crummie does. She just drinks as much as will do her good, and not a drop more. You might take an example of the poor dumb brute.”

“Ah,” said John, “it’s easy for her.”

“Why more easy for her than you, John?”

“Oh, just because it is. Man, there’s nae temptation in her case.”

“Temptation, John? What do you mean?”

“Weel, you see, sir, it’s no the love o’ the drink a’thegether that gars a body get the waur o’t. It’s the conveeviality o’ the thing that plays the plisky. Ye see, sir, ye meet a freend on the street, an’ ye tak’ him in to gie him a dram, an’ ye crack awa’ for a while, an’ syne he ca’s in a dram, an’ there ye crack an’ ye drink, an’ ye drink an’ ye crack, an’ dod, ye just get fou afore ye ken whaur ye are. It’s easy for Crummie, as I said, she has naebody to lead her aff her feet, as ye may say. She comes oot here an’ tak’s her drink, an’ no anither coo says Crummie ye’re there. But, certes, sir, had Dauvit Tamson’s coo just come to the ither side o’ the burn a meenit syne, an’ as Crummie was takin’ her first toothfu’, had flappit hersel’ doon on her hunkers an’ said, ‘Here’s to ye, Crummie,’ I’ll eat my bonnet if she wadna hae flappit hersel’ doon on her hunkers an’ said, ‘Here’s to you, Hornie.’ An’ there the twa jauds wad hae sitten an’ drunken until they were baith blind fou. I tell you again, sir, it’s the conveeviality o’ the thing that plays the plisky.”

And yet there are instances to show that some of those old tipplers repented somewhat of their folly. The celebrated teetotaller, the Rev. Dr. Ritchie, of Potterrow, Edinburgh, once went to form a teetotal society at Peebles, and a man and wife who heard the speeches were conscience-smitten, and after they went home the wife said—

“’Od, John, I think we’ll hae to set doon our names to that thing yet.”

“We’ll gang to anither o’ the meetin’s yet afore we decide,” said the husband.

Next meeting showed the picture of a young man ruined by drink, and the two went forward at the close to set their names down.

“But are we never to taste it ava’?” they asked simultaneously.

“Never,” quoth the minister, “unless for a medicine.”

Nothing daunted by this the old couple took the pledge, and went home, taking a bottle of whisky with them—the which Janet stowed away in the ben-house press to wait on cases of emergency. More than a fortnight elapsed before drink was again mentioned by one to the other, when one night John complained of an “awfu’ pain in his stammack,” and suggested that it might not be safe to go to bed without taking just half a glass or so.

“O, man, John, it’s a pity ye hae been sae lang o’ speakin’,” said Janet, “for ’odsake, I’ve had sae mony o’ thae towts mysel’ this auchtdays that there’s no a drap o’ yon to the fore.”

An old woman, who was a rigid total abstainer, was very ill. The doctor told the nurse that she must give her a little toddy the last thing at night. So when night came the nurse said to her patient, “The doctor says ye maun tak’ some toddy.” “Oh, no, no!” whined the poor old body; “it’s against my principle.” “But,” remonstrated the nurse, “the doctor says ye maun tak’ it.” “Aweel,” replied the old woman resignedly, “I suppose we maun use the means; but mak’ it strong, and gar me tak’ it—gar me tak’ it.”

Tam Forsyth was one of those who went from bad to worse with the dram, and never repented of his folly. One night in going home the breadth of the road fatigued him so, that, coming to a quiet corner, he lay down, and was soon fast asleep. Some young fellows finding him lying snoring, resolved to have some fun out of the reprobate, so they gently removed him to a dark cellar. Getting some phosphorus, they rubbed it on their own and Tam’s hands and faces, and then awakened their victim. Tam seeing the state those around him were in, inquired, fearfully—

“Whaur am I?”

“Ye’re dead,” said one of the young men.

“Hoo lang have I been dead?”

“A fortnicht.”

“An’ are ye dead, too?”

“Yes.”

“Hoo lang have you been dead?”

“Three weeks.”

“Then,” said Tam, without a tremour in his voice, “you’ll be better acquaint here aboot than me: there’s a shillin’, skirt awa’ roond an’ see if ye can get hauf a mutchkin, for I’m as dry’s a wooden leg.”

I have remarked on how strongly the practice of dram-drinking had established itself in the social life of Scotland. It is the sore spot in our national character—a distinct characteristic (happily on the wane)—and the inducements to participation have been often novel and therefore humorous. Well-to-do individuals long ago frequently gave instructions to their relatives likely to survive them to be sure and have plenty of whisky at their funerals. A Montrose tradesman, feeling the near approach of his dissolution, signalled his wife to his bedside and very gravely said, “Ye’ll get in a bottle o’ whisky, Mary, for there’s to be sad cheenge here this nicht.”

The association of the “dram” with our marriage festivities has been happily hit off by Robert Buchanan in “The Wedding of Shon MacLean,” where “every piper was fou—twenty pipers together;” but surely the stupidity, the folly, the humour of dram-drinking to excess was never better illustrated than by Burns in the tale of “Tam o’ Shanter.” To have attributed such hair-lifting experiences to any sober Carrick farmer, as he “frae Ayr a’e nicht did canter,” would have been absurd, and the author knew it. Such a phantasmagoria of “warlocks and witches in a dance” could be patent only to the heated imagination of a “bletherin’, blusterin’, drunken blellum,” such as the poet has represented his hero to have been.

Of whisky the poet has said—

And so it does; but it reduces all who imbibe it for such effects, mentally to the level of the ring-tailed monkey, and makes them cut capers as fantastic as were ever performed by the most agile “Jacko.” To this showing let our further illustrations here tend.

A West country farmer on a certain moonlight night, setting out towards home from the market town where he had sat too long and drunk too deep, had reached the burn near to his own house, attempting to cross which by the stepping-stones he missed his footing and came down with a splash into the burn. Unable to raise himself beyond his hands and knees, he looked down into the clear water, in which the moon was vividly reflected. In this position, and with the water streaming from his forelock and beard he began to shout to his wife. “Marget! Marget!”

The good woman heard and distinguished the well-known voice of her husband, and rushed out crying, “Ho, John! My, John! Is that you, John? Whaur are you, John?”

“Whaur am I?” rejoined the voice from the burn. “Gudeness kens whaur I am, Marget, but I see I’m far abune the mune.”

A country laird on one occasion sent his gardener, John by name, to his cellar to bottle a barrel of whisky, and cautioned him at the same time to be sure and drink one whole glass of the liquor before starting to the work, or else the fumes might go to his head and seriously affect him. John was a careful man, generally speaking, so took extra precautions, though these were not attended with satisfactory results. Entering the cellar the laird was astonished to find his trusted retainer staggering about stupidly in the place.

“Ah, John, John,” exclaimed the laird, “you have not acted on my advice, I fear, and taken a dram before starting.”

“Dram be hang’d!” blurted out John. “It’s no a bit o’ use. I hae ta’en nearly a dizzen o’ them, an’ I’m gettin’ aye the langer the waur.”

A Forfarshire agriculturist, somewhat given to the dram, coming home one evening fully “three sheets to the wind,” took a seat by the fire, and, what with the heat and the fumes of the whisky he had imbibed, he soon became sick, and possessed of an irresistible desire to turn himself inside out. At his feet sat a “coal baikie,” which for the nonce was occupied by a brood of young ducklings that had been deserted by their foster mother, and for the sake of preservation had been brought into the kitchen and placed thus near the fire. Into this utensil our hero deposited the cause of his internal derangement. And his good wife appearing on the scene, observing but unobserved, a minute or two later, she found her husband peering critically down into the “baikie,” and muttering to himself—

“Eh! megstie me. It surely canna be possible. I mind weel eneuch o’ eating that cheese, an’ (hic) thae biscuits, an’ the beef. An’ I mind perfectly weel o’ suppin’ thae (hic) kail, an’ the barley amon’ them; but, in the name o’ a’ that’s wonderfu’, whaur in a’ the world did I get (hic) thae young deucks!”

He learned next morning, doubtless, on the deafest side of his head.

Even so stern an institution as total abstinence (?) has its humorous side:—

An old “wifie,” who had a weakness for whisky, had been prevailed upon to take the pledge.

Shortly afterwards she called upon a rather “drouthie neebor,” who was not aware of her visitor’s reformation.

The bottle was at once, as usual, produced, and the recent convert to total abstinence was sorely tempted.

She made, however, a gallant effort to remain true to principle, and, holding up deprecating hands, she said, “Na, thank ye, Mrs. Mitchell, I’ve ta’en the pledge. I have made a solemn vow not to pit han’ or lip to gless again.”

But then, seeing Mrs. Mitchell was about to remove the spirits, she hesitatingly said, “I daur say if you wad put a wee drappie in a tea-cup I could maybe tak’ it.”

A young countryman went a considerable distance to pay a visit to his uncle and aunt and cousins, who were reputed a family of strict teetotallers. During his first meal at his kinsman’s table the young man commented on the absence of spirituous liquors.

“We are a’ temperance folk here, ye ken,” interrupted the old man. “No spirituous liquors are allowed to enter this house.”

After dinner the old man went up stairs to take his customary “forty winks,” the girls started off to Sunday School, and the boys lounged away to smoke in the stable. As soon as Aunt Betty found herself alone in the kitchen she put her initial finger to her lips, to enjoin silence on the part of her youthful nephew, and going to a dark nook in the pantry she drew therefrom a little black bottle, and filling a glass held it out to him, and said—

“Here, John, tak’ a taste o’ that. Our gudeman’s sic a strict teetotaller that I daurna let him ken that I keep a wee drap in the hoose—just for medicine. So dinna mention it.”

A few minutes later the old man cried from the stairhead, “Are you there, John?”

The nephew went upstairs, when the head of the house took him to his own bedroom, where he promptly produced a gallon-jar of whisky from an old portmanteau under the bed, and pouring out a hearty dram, said—

“Teetotalin’ doesna prevent me frae keepin’ a wee drap o’ the ‘rale peat reek’ in case o’ illness, or that; so here, lad, put ye that in your cheek; but (confidentially) not a word aboot it to your auntie, or the laddies.”

Strolling out of doors soon after this second surprise, and entering the stable, the cousins beckoned their relative into the barn, where, after fumbling among the straw for a few seconds, they handed him a black bottle, with the encouraging words—

“Tak’ a sook o’ that, cousin, ye’ll find it gude; but not a word to the old fouks, mind, for twa mair infatuated teetotallers were never born.”

I have said that our drinking customs have made us the butt of the foreign “jokist.” Here is the proof, in the following clever skit—a burlesque report of the celebration of St. Andrew’s Day in Calcutta—which appeared some years ago in the columns of the Indian Daily News, under the title of—

That is quite delicious! And now we will allow George Outram to close the chapter with his inimitable poem:—