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XXVIII.—A WEEK IN SCOTLAND. • !
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A —. ~* You need not be afraid, dear rea...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
( 186 >
( 186 >
Xxviii.—A Week In Scotland. • !
XXVIII . —A WEEK IN _SCOTLAND . !
A —. ~* You Need Not Be Afraid, Dear Rea...
A — . _~* You need not be afraid , dear reader , I am . not going to treat of the employment of women—my friends the editors are sure to
inform you fully on that subject;— "but the archways of Glasgow College and the Lion-couchant of Edinburgh waver before ray eyes :
there is a savor of _JFinnen haddocks and a flavor of whisky in my nostrils ; in my ears there is an echo of the soft burr of Scott
and Burns ; . and I wish—to express my feelings . I have seen a great many newspaper reports , abridgments _,
analyses , and extracts of papers , statistics as numerous as the grains of sand wherewith Thomas of Eildoun set the de'il to work to make
ropes . I have seen the President ' s address and the Vice-Presidents ' addressesand read the thanks and compliments which everybody
showered , on everybody from Monday the 24 th to Saturday the 29 th . But I have seen no account of the real outward aspect of
that many-headed thing called the Association , which shows a disposition to increase like those fabled dragon ' s teeth , from each of
whom sprang " seven armed men . " Imagine that on a certain day in September deponent goes to
Euston Square at the unwonted hour of nine in the morning , and accosting a railway official " I understand you are charging
says , reduced fares to Glasgow , on account of the Association ? " The official stares with an air of stolid amazement , and _reiDlies shortly
and decisively , " IVliat Association ? " Sic transit gloria _mundil by which I here mean to imply , that half the glories of the world of
Social Science ( all , in fact , who did not travel by King's Cross and . the North British ) , lords and commoners , physicians and barristers ,
clergymen and literati , gentlemen innumerable and not a few ladies , had travelled to Glasgow bthose very rails within a few previous
days , and the man up who sold them y their tickets was perfectly oblivious of the cause of their gregarious flight . Did . he think that a sudden
rage for bannocks and porridge had seized some hundreds of Londoners simultaneously ? or had the drought in the City been so
excessive that _peojole were going * for a change to a town proverbially one of the wettest in the kingdom ? I felt quite put down \ the importance of
my errand shrunk woefully in my imagination , while the official rejoined _dryl"We ive excursion tickets and a month ' s leave of
y , g absence . " Such were the inglorious terms on which I was compelled to pay my fare . Under the pretence of " excursion" I was
allowed to pay £ 3 10 s . for a ticket marked Glasgow , with the privilege of sleeping at Carlisle .
when I settled whom my should goods I in meet a carriage on the latform and went but to a buy wandering a newspaper Vice , - p
dent President bears , , bound a nam like e famous myself in for one Glasgow class of College English . This reforms Vice , - but Presi I -
dreariness shall not divul the ge endless it ; it miles made to me be , traversed however , that antici day pate , for with the fur less -
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1860, page 186, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111860/page/42/
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