then to Mrs. Lind for the installation, next to Mrs. Barker (Daughters of the Heather) and lastly to Mrs. Wood for the very capable manner in which she carried through her duties as marshal. A program of songs and recitals followed, during which Mrs. McCormack, Mrs. McNicol, Robert McGregor and Hugh McIntyre and others were heard to advantage. No doubt the clansmen who witnessed the ceremony will seek to do something to emulate the example set them by the ladies, and it may be each clan desires to form a degree team to officiate on such occasions. JOHN BALDWIN. Alice street, Pawtucket, R. I. Cincinnati, Ohio The Scots in Cincinnati are very patriotic. St. Andrew's Day was celebrated in the evening by the Caledonian Society, in the Hotel Gibson. After dinner the evening was spent in stirring speeches and patriotic songs. On January 25, 1917, they celebrated Burns anniversary in giving a most enjoyable concert. "The Cincinnati Kiltie Band" made its first appearance, in parading through the streets to the Music Hall, led by the Drum Major, who is seven feet tall, the tallest Scotsman in Ohio. Great credit is due to the Executive Committee, consisting of Dr. Donald D. MacDougall, Major William Nimmo, Robert K. Thompson, in forming and fitting the Kiltie Band, which took such prominent part in the Burns concert. The Executive Committee marched with the band dressed in Highland costume. Akron, Ohio The Burns Club, of Akron, Ohio, is planning a busy winter to keep alive in its midst Scottish poetry, sentiment and music. Its recent St. Andrew's Day entertainment made it a host of new friends. James Shaw is chairman of the executive committee. Cleveland, Ohio At the first meeting of Cleveland St. Andrew's Scottish Society for 1917, Saturday evening, January 13th, the following officers were installed for the ensuing year: President, Thomas Scott; first vice-president, Alex. Dunbar; second vice-president, Allan McDougall; chaplain, John Campbell; treasurer, Thomas Moodie; secretary, John Miller; trustee, Robert Hardie, the installation ceremony being performed by Allan McDougall and Phil Barker. The society on its regular meeting night, January 27th. celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns by inviting the members, their wives and friends to a social and entertainment. Clan Grant presented an excellent pro. gram at their annual Burns concert, Janu ary 26th. Albany, N. Y. The Albany, N. Y., Burns Club held its 64th annual dinner in honor of Robert Burns, on January 25th. It was a most interesting, happy occasion. Dr. A. R. Brubacher, president of the State College, spoke of "The Scotch in America." Rev. Dr. George Dugan, pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian, talked on Robert Burns. The membership of the Albany Burns Club includes many prominent citizens. The present officers of the club are: President, Dr. John M. Clarke, State geologist, elected for the third successive term; vice president, the Rev. Roelif H. Brooks; treasurer, David M. Kinnear, who has been treasurer since 1893, and secretary, William A. Glenn. Clan MacFarlane, No. 22, O. S. C., Albany, installed the following officers for the ensuing year, on January 11: Chief, Alexander MacKenzie Mattock; tanist, Alexander Laird; chaplain, John Clark; secretary, Arthur Henry; financial secretary, Alexander Clark; treasurer, William Reid. Walter Scott's Gift to the Old People's Home, Chicago Chicago, January 24, 1917. How can I thank you for my delightful Sunday? First our pleasant ride to the Scottish Old People's Home and then my delight in finding it so beautifully situated. Then the meeting of your very capable superintendent, and the inspection of the Home finding it so orderly and cleanly and so free from the institutional effect. The introduction to your family of elderly children in the shape of those who have reached three score and ten years and over whose autumn of life is being made so much pleasanter and happier on account of the Home which has been provided for them. There was a happy expression on their faces which indicated that it was a Home in the full sense of the word. My regret is that everyone does not know about it, for I must confess that while I knew a little, yet half had never been told me so that I hope you will allow me to be one of those as regards the plan we talked about yesterday of interesting the Scottish Clans, Caledonian Club and other Scottish Societies, also individuals in a more co-operative spirit of assisting the Home. The plan we talked about to me is a very good one, namely that individual and these societies each agree to take care of one inmate at a cost of $25.00 per month. I have much pleasure in being No. 1 in making this offer so that hereafter you will receive from me a check for $25.00 each month until further notice, and I trust you will be able to secure many more. This amount I believe will take care of one of your family of old people. Good luck and best wishes in this new thought. Let me thank Mrs. Williamson, your family and self for the delightful dinner and pleasant afternoon spent at your own home, and I trust I may soon again have the pleasure. In closing, may I congratulate you and your associates on the good work accomplished at the Scottish Old People's Home and accept my good wishes to you all for the future, for you are indeed building a monument which will live for all time to the credit of all those who had a hand in making possible this Home. Sincerely yours, (Signed) WALTER SCOTT. JOHN WILLIAMSON, ESQ.. Canton, Ohio The Jolly Beggars of Canton and friends met Thursday evening, January 25, in the rooms of the Rotary Club, and celebrated the one hundred and fifty-eighth anniversary of the birth of "Robert Burns," the poet of the world. There was a good attendance and after meeting new and renewing old acquaintances, the company adjourned to the banquet hall, where the menu, which was up-todate, included: The Haggis, Scotch shortbread, oatmeal cakes and scones. John Dunbar was toastmaster. Eulogies on the poet were given by Ex-Mayor J. H. Robertson, of Canton; William G. Miller, Navarre; Dr. Campbell, Orrville, and John MacGregor, Canton The latter recited a poem by James Macfarlan, "To the Memory of Robert Burns." Macfarlan, who was of erratic habits, was born on Kirk street, Calton, Glasgow, April 9, 1832, and died November 5, 1862, in the Drygate, Glasgow, in the 31st year of his age. At noon, the 25th of January, 1859, he staggered into a newspaper office, soliciting employment. The kindly editor gave him five shillings and requested him to write an ode on Burns to be read at one of the banquets in the city that evening. Before the appointed time the ode was sent in to the chairman of the meeting. Perhaps at some future time space may allow it to appear on the pages of THE CALEDONIAN. Scottish and American selections were ably given by the "Elgar Quartette" and violin and piano selections were given by Messrs. Gabel and Stock. The meeting concluded with the singing of "Auld Lang Syne." Jolly Beggars William Brown and A. E. Maskney were in charge of the arrangements, which were highly successful. ALEXANDER RUSSELL. 1009 Bluff Road, N. E., Canton, Ohio. New Publications The American Review of Reviews for January has a fine frontispiece portrait of David Lloyd George and many other illustrations. "Peace, Politics and War-a Marvelous Month," is Mr. Simonds' 27th monthly article on the great war. Other articles are: "High Food Prices and Their Causes," by David S. Kennedy; "Francis Joseph and His Reign," by Albert F. Baldwin (with striking portraits of members of the ill-fated Hapsburg house); "Austria Faces the Future," by T. Lothrop Stoddard (with a map showing the racial elements of "the polygot empire"); and "German Military Leaders." The current number of Scottish Country Life (monthly), Glasgow, contains superbly illustrated articles on "Dumfries," in its famous Scottish burghs series; "Clan Rose and its chiefs, with views of Kilravock Castle; and "The White Lady of Otterstoun"; and many miscellaneous scenes and portraits. The departments of sports, gardening, natural history, farming, photography, fashions, etc., are of the usual high standard. For Your Vacation go to BERMUDA Delightful Ocean Voyage Two Days Each Way Golf, Tennis, Boating, Bathing, Cycling, Fishing Temperature Cooler than Middle S. S. "BERMUDIAN" WEST INDIES New S. S. "GUIANA" and other steamers fortnightly for St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Kitts, Antigua. Guadaloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, Barbadoes and Demerara. For full information apply to Quebec S. S. Co., 32 B'way, New York Thos. Cook & Son, 245 Broadway, New York, Or Any Ticket Agent The Scriptural Thimble will appeal to ladies in general and church sewing circles and sewing schools, as they will be a reminder of God's loving care. We recommend the Scripture Thimble as advertise to our readers. Robert Burns as Poet of Scottish Nationalism (Continued from page 468) His nationalism, moreover, was not of the narrow and exclusive type which denies to other lands the rights and privileges claimed for one's own. Burns, who would have no foreign tinker-loon interfering in the affairs of Scotland, recognized also the claims of other nations to like liberties_ the right to retain in their own hands the control of their national destinies. That is is an aspect of Burns's political creed which seems to have been resented by many of his friends, and to have puzzled even honest Allan Cunningham. "It is true," says the stone-mason poet, "that he hesitated to take off his hat in the theatre to the air of 'God Save the King,' that he refused to drink the health of Pitt, saying he preferred that of Washington-a far greater man-that he wrote bitter words against that combination of princes who desired to put down freedom in France." Some, if not all of these things, Allan Cunningham, with a singular lack of understanding, attributes to the bard's "bad taste," but is it not plain that the poet's steadfast adherence to the principles of Scottish nationalism is the real explanation? Burns was not a Jacobite in the ordinary sense of the word, but in spite of what he regarded as their faults, he had a warm admiration for the ancient Stuart race. Probably he felt that the monarch who reigned in his own days had little claim to the respect of the nation. Had he been living twenty or thirty years later, he would doubtless have agreed with the discerning bard who wrote: "George the First was reckoned vile, However that may be, it is quite certain that Burns's sympathy with the American Republic, which had then but newly won its independence--sympathy frankly avowed at a time when it was rather a perilous matter to do so and his support of the cause of liberty and progress in France were founded on and inspired by the poet's ideals of freedom and National independence. The liberty that he claimed. for Scotland he freely accorded to the people of France and America. He was ready, too, to help the cause of Liberty in these lands by every means in his power. His purchase of four guns from a captured smuggling vessel, and his futile attempt to forward them as a gift to the French Legislative Assembly was but one of the many ways in which he showed his sympathy with the cause of liberty and progress, both at home and abroad. Burns at that time was "gauger" in Dumfries, and ever after he was a "marked man" in the eyes of the Government authorities. Indeed, there is reason to believe that but for the intervention of his friend, Mr. Graham, of Fintray, his employment, paltry though it was, would have been lost to him forever. By this time Burns had already tasted the fruits of success, had risen to fame, had been cast aside by his fair-weather friends in Edinburgh, and had experienced the bit terness of another grinding struggle with poverty. I have already referred to the poet's connection with the Dumfries Volunteers. I am not sure, however, that he was particularly proud of some of the fighting men with whom he was associated. We know that the tailor who made his regimentals threatened the dying poet with "the horrors of a gaol" unless the bill for the gaudy garments were promptly paid. Only a few days before his death he was driven to borrow a paltry ten pounds to save his shrunken, emaciated body from prison, for wealthy Scotsmen, who thirty years later, would offer £300 for the poet's punch bowl, would scarcely save his dying form from this last degradation. Allan Cunningham tells us, too, that as Burns lay on his deathbed, he turned to Gibson, one of his fellow soldiers, who stood at his bedside with wet eyes "John," said he, and a gleam of humor passed over his face, "Pray don't let the awkward squad fire over me?" On account of his association with the Dumfries Volunteers, however, the poet was accorded a semi-military funeral. Savs Allan Cunningham: "It was a calm and beautiful day, and as the body was borne along the street towards the old kirkyard by his brethren of the Volunteers, not a sound was heard but the measured step and the solemn music; there was no impatient crushing, no fierce elbowing. The crowd which filled the street seemed conscious of what they were losing. On reaching the northern nook of the kirkyard, where the grave was made, the mourners halted; the coffin was divested of the mort-cloth, and silently lowered to its last resting place, and as the first shovelful of earth fell on the lid, the Volunteers, too agitated to be silent, justified the fears of the poet by three ragged volleys." Allan Cunningham thus concludes his account of the funeral: "He who writes this very brief and imperfect account was present; he thought then, as he thinks now, that all the military array of foot and horse did not harmonize with either the genius or the fortunes of the poet, and that the tears which he saw on many cheeks around, as the earth was replaced, were worth all the splendor of a show which mocked with unintended mockery the burial of poor and neglected Burns." Those who are most familiar with the THE "FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES! 31 Volumes of Short, Bright Biographies Post THOMAS CARLYLE By Hector C. Macpherson ALLAN RAMSAY By Oliphant Smeaton JOHN KNOX By A. Taylor Innes RICHARD CAMERON By Professor Herkless THOMAS CHALMERS By Prof. W. Garden Blaikie JAMES BOSWELL By W. Keith Leask TOBIAS SMOLLETT By Oliphant Smeaton FLETCHER OF SALTOUN By G. W. T. Omond THE "BLACKWOOD" GROUP By Professor Saintsbury By William Bayne MUNGO PARK By T. Banks Maclachlan DAVID HUME By Professor Calderwood WILLIAM DUNBAR By Oliphant Smeaton THOMAS REID 75c. By Prof. Campbell Fraser POLLOK AND AYTOUN By Rosaline Masson ADAM SMITH By Hector C. Macpherson JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER By E. S. Haldane JAMES HOGG By Sir George Douglas THOMAS CAMPBELL By J. Cuthbert Hadden SIR DAVID WILKIE By Edward Pinnington THE ERSKINES, EBENEZER AND RALPH By A. R. MacEwen THOMAS GUTHRIE By Oliphant Smeaton THE ACADEMIC GREGORIES By James Y. Simpson Caledonian Publishing Company, Bible House, 4th Avenue and 8th Street, New York writings of Burns and the story of his checkered life will be the first to express agreement with the words of Allan Cunningham. It is necessary to emphasize this aspect of the poet's life and work, in view of the efforts of certain of his admirers to claim him as a champion of militarism. It is not alone as a great lyric poet that Burns is loved by Scotsmen. In him is seen a thoughtful and earnest reformer a pioneer of Scottish nationalism. To reformers throughout the world he has brought new ideals of freedom, love and brotherhood, and the message which accompanies them—a message which even the thunder of the cannon cannot silence3re his own warm, loving and prophetic words For a' that, an' a' that, It's comin' yet for a' that, Yes, "it's comin' yet for a' that, an' a' that." Jingoism, Militarism and Imperialism will pass away; but the message of the Divine Apostle of Peace and Fraternity will not pass away. The Scottish Review. |