admit acquaintance with Scottish words. I think it is a national calamity. (Applause.) If we are to remain what we are, a true race, we cannot afford to lose our peculiar speech, and I should like to see good Scots used in every school-and I should like to see every candidate for Parliament heckled in Doric. (Laughter.) I would appeal to those who still know the old tongue to speak it, to use it, and to write it. Happily there are still " just men in Israel." There are to-day Scots writers like Hugh Haliburton, Charles Murray, Violet Jacob, who write idiomatic Scottish verse. I would like to see every "Poet's Corner" in every country paper filled with experiments in the tongue of our forefathers. Do you remember what Sir Walter Scott once said : "If you unscotch us you will make us damned mischievous Englishmen," and the Scottish writer who dares to unscotch himself becomes a damned writer. (Applause.)

I would appeal to this great Club to make it part of their duty to foster the Scottish tongue. (Applause.) I believe there are still people living, Scottish Miltons, at present mute and inglorious, who only want a certain amount of reasonable encouragement. I can give you one example of that second-rate quality.

Some years ago, when I was in South Africa, I had the task of framing a new game statute for the Transvaal, and among other provisions, we made one in regard to the rhinoceros, which was becoming very rare. Under this provision any man found poaching one was fined £80. That was reported in The Scotsman, and caught the eye of a gentleman in Lanarkshire, who perhaps, by profession, was a poacher. Anyhow, he wrote the following ::-

I've stood wi' baith ma pooches stuffed fou o' pheasants' eggs And a ten-pund saumon hingin' doon baith ma trouser legs; And I've crackit wi' a keeper; but yon was naethin' serious, Its a verra different kind o' job to meet a rhinocerious.

I mind when me and Willie killed a Royal in Braemar
And brocht him doon tae Athol by the licht o' mune and star.
I'll no deny the muckle beast contrived tae fash and weary us,
But Royals maun be child's play compared wi' rhinocerious.

I thocht I kenned o' poachin' just as much as ither men,
But noo I see there's twa-three things that still I dinna ken;
I canna eat, I canna sleep, I'm perfectly deleerious-

I maun awa' tae Africa and poach a rhinocerious.

(Loud laughter.) Ladies and Gentlemen, if there are men living capable of doing as good things as that, for heaven's sake, let us have more of them. (Loud applause.)

Lieutenant-Colonel E. A. Ewart ("Boyd Cable") who was also well received, said :-

It gives me the greater pleasure to be with you to-night because I have been trying for three years to get here. For the previous two years I have had a much more pressing and less pleasing engagement overseas. It is, therefore, an extra pleasure to-night to meet the members of the Burns Club. I remember the last Burns Anniversary Dinner I ate was over in France. Somebody discovered it was Burns night, and I, being the only Scot in the place, was called upon to make the haggis. We found rice, bully beef, and Army biscuits, and we made haggis out of it. (Laughter.) That was all we had, except pepper and salt. However, that is rather going off the subject of Scottish Literature.

Amongst all I have known of Burns, I think the one thing that first struck me, and has stuck to me all my life, has been the songs that we are all familiar with; and it is extraordinary how those songs crop up in all corners of the world, and the tremendous appeal they make, not only to Scots, but to every other English-speaking person. I have heard a fireman on a tramp steamer making the fo'csle ring with songs of Burns, and I have heard whole pages of Burns quoted by a teamster in the back Australian bush. I also remember hearing a Canadian Highlander in one of the villages in France trying to teach a French girl "My bonnie dearie." (Laughter.) I may say he met with an astonishing amount of success. (Renewed laughter.) I remember a little story of the first battle of the Somme. It was during a late period of the battle when, you will remember, we were having a great deal of bad weather and were living in mud, rain, and misery for weeks on end. One of the Scottish Regiments was going over the top, to take a certain objective. Just before the barrage lifted, when there was a great deal of noise, one of the platoon commanders, a lieutenant, met his company commander, who was crawling along to see that everything was all ready before they started out. The platoon commander was shouting something at the pitch of his voice, but the company commander could not hear it, and all he could catch was something about not remembering... lines." Then the whistle went to go over, and over they went, and got their first objective. All the time what was worrying this company commander was whether the platoon commander had forgotten something very important. He had heard a question about lines, and he could only think of the line of his objective, and he thought "If this young ass has forgotten his line of objective, he is going to throw the company in the soup." When he got into the first line of shell holes, he crawled along under a heavy fire to make his way to this lieutenant's position. Eventually he managed to reach the hole

where the platoon commander was lying, and he tumbled in beside him and asked him : "What was it you had forgotten ?" The lieutenant replied: 'I have been trying to think what are the second and third lines of Scots Wha Hae!'" (Loud laughter.) That may sound very extraordinary, but these things do happen sometimes. The company commander turned round and said : "You and your Scots Wha Hae!' I'll tell you what I'm thinking about. Have you ever heard of the Wee, cowerin', tim'rous beastie, O what a panic's in thy breastie ?'" (Loud laughter.)

I was for a certain time in the South African War, where I served in Lovat's Scouts, with the pipes in my ears getting up each morning and lying down each night. We were a mounted regiment, but we had the extraordinary privilege of having the pipes to sound Reveille and Lights Out. The pipes are great hearteners. I remember seeing one of our Scottish Regiments coming out of action. They had had very heavy losses, and were coming out pretty well dead beat, and were just limping` along, dragging their feet and looking dead to the world, when they were met by half a dozen pipers. The pipers waited until this handful of men came along, and then they struck up their pipes, and if you had seen those men throw back their heads and brace their shoulders and step out, it would have done you good. (Loud applause.) More than once it has been my privilege to see some of our Highland Regiments go over the top, and the men to lead them out were the pipers every time. It is quite true that "Scots Wha Hae " has done a lot in this war. For all I am indebted to Burns, I am indebted most to his songs, and with all his contributions to Scottish literature, I shall always feel that his songs are the finest we have. (Loud applause.)

This ended the toast list, and the large company formed a great ring round the banqueting hall, and sang "Auld Lang Syne," as it is seldom sung at social gatherings. Past President James Thomson sang the first verse, Miss Mary Mackie took the second verse, and Mr Archie Anderson the third. The company, joining hands, sang the verse beginning, Then, here's a hand, my trusty fier." When the final hearty cheers had been given the company separated, all agreeing that they had taken part in one of the most successful gatherings ever held in London.

66

The great bulk of the work fell upon the able and worthy Hon. Secretary (Mr P. N. M'Farlane), whose arrangements were complete, and whose many efforts made the Festival run smoothly from start to finish,

THE MANSE OF LOUDOUN.

N the year 1763 the Rev. George Laurie succeeded Andrew Ross in the Parish Church of Loudoun, Ayrshire, and took up his abode in the Old Manse at Newmilns. In the following year the minister brought home a young wife, and very soon little heads clustered round his board. The Old Manse was small and had many inconveniences, and four years later Mr Laurie, his wife, and children moved to a more commodious residence only a few hundred yards from the former house. The New Manse was built on a gentle slope beside the road between Galston and Newmilns, one of the first roads in the country to be made by statute labour. The minister planted the space between his house and the highway with birch and chestnut trees, which in process of time almost screened the Manse from public view. The new house had some pretensions to elegance both in its exterior and interior, although there was a court behind it, like that of a farmhouse, with byre and stabling forming two sides of the square. The country minister long ago, with his garden and glebe, was usually a bit of a farmer, and a horse was indispensable for working the glebe and the minister's use in the visitation of a large parish. He almost invariably kept a man to look after the glebe, the garden, the horse, and the cow, and to do odd jobs about the house. Dr Laurie's household included the minister's man as a matter of course.

The new Manse was two storeys in height, with attics. The ceilings were low, the windows small with many panes, and the walls thick. For the period, however, it was a good house, and a beautiful garden was soon laid out at the back and side of the building. Over the front door, which faced the road, the letters G. L. and M. C. were carved -the initials of the names of the minister and his wife—

with the date 1768.

By-and-bye there was added the motto, "Jehovah Jireh" (the Lord will provide)-words which may have brought comfort to many both without and within the Manse. The story of this motto is told in this fashion. One day the nurse from the Manse, accompanied by the children, was walking along the road when a stranger stopped to ask whose bonny bairns they were. replied that they were the minister's children.

The nurse

That's

a big family for a minister to provide for," was the reply. When the nurse went home she repeated the story to her mistress, and she, in turn, to her husband. Dr Laurie said little, but on the lintel of the door he caused to be carved the words of trust and confidence mentioned above. The story may be a mere tradition, for Dr Laurie had but three children, while many a contemporary had much less of this world's gear to start their young people in life than the] parish minister of Loudoun.

The Rev. George Laurie came of a race of ministers.