burns, like every other scotchman that has trailed a pen, did not fail to help along the scottish advertisement with a suitable contribution. he wrote the cottar’s saturday night, and thereby did a great thing for scotland, setting up a picture of scottish home life and piety which the generations seem to regard as authentic. we have all been taught to admire the moral excellences of that cottar, not to mention the moral excellences of his wife and children:
with joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet,
and each for others’ welfare kindly spiers;
the social hours swift winged, unnotic’d fleet,
each tells the unco’s that he see or hears.
[180]
the parents partial eye their hopeful years,
anticipation forward prints the view;
the mother, wi’ her needle and her shears,
gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new,
the father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due.
their masters’ and their mistresses’ command
the younkers a’ are warned to obey.
and mind their labours wi’ an eydent hand,
and ne’er tho’ out of sight to jauk or play—
and o! be sure to fear the lord alway.
and mind your duty, duly morn and night,
lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray,
implore his counsel and assisting might,
they never sought in vain that sought the lord aright.
all of which is very fine, and, with much more to the like effect, has helped the scotch peasant into an odour of sanctity which on the whole does not appear to be quite his element. indeed, so far from conducting his life in the manner suggested by the cottar’s saturday night, the average scot of the lower orders appears to base himself on the more scandalous portion of burns’s writing.
according to the latest returns, the population of scotland is 4,472,000. in the year 1900, which is the latest year for which statistics are available, a matter of 180,000 persons[181] were charged with criminal offences in scotland. so that out of every twenty-five scotchmen in scotland one is either a convicted criminal or a person who has been charged with a criminal offence. from the official buff-book dealing with the subject i take the following:
“the criminal returns for 1900 show an increase over those for the previous year under all the important classes into which crime and offences are grouped, the number of persons charged has risen to close upon 180,000, and if we compare this with the last published english tables for the year 1899, we shall find, for equal numbers of population, scotland has over three charges for every two in england.
“furthermore, imprisonments in scotland continue to be proportionately much higher than in england, and for every three committals in england there are seven in scotland. the increase in criminal offences during 1900 is distributed under the following heads”:
[182]
culpable homicide 28
assaults of husbands on wives 690
cruel and unnatural treatment of children 242
housebreaking of all kinds 190
theft 1,916
malicious mischief 986
betting games and lotteries 96
breach of the peace, etc. 519
cruelty to animals 145
offences in relation to dogs 148
drunkenness 5,785
offences against elementary education acts 397
army deserters 1,207
offences against police acts, by-laws and regulations 9,570
prostitution 613
bicycling, etc, offences 367
obstructions and nuisances, and other road act offences 2,664
public health act offences 162
lodging without consent of owner under vagrancy acts 425
26,150
it will thus be seen that theft and drunkenness bear the gree among scotch crimes, while the large number of offences against police acts, by-laws, and regulations tends to show that the scot is not a good citizen. the mere statistics as to crime, however, do not give one anything like an adequate idea of the general depravity of the scotch character.[183] to understand it properly we must add to the criminal returns the illegitimacy returns.
from dr. albert leffingwell’s[16] book on illegitimacy i take the following passage:
“in 1881 the census of scotland showed that there were then living in that portion of the kingdom 492,454 unmarried women (that is to say, spinsters and widows) between the ages of fifteen and forty-five. during the ten years 1878-87 there were born in scotland 105,091 illegitimate children, or an annual average of twenty-one to each thousand unmarried females at this specified age. in england and wales the corresponding number of the unmarried females was 3,046,431, and the number of illegitimate births during the same period was 426,184, or fourteen to each thousand of the possible mothers. in ireland, the number of unmarried women at this age was a third larger than in scotland, or 731,767. yet to[184] each thousand of these were born every year less than five illegitimate children during a ten-year period, 1878-87. here again we are perplexed with the problem why scotia and hibernia should present such widely different contrasts. every year in scotland there are five times the proportion of bastards that see the light in ireland!”
dr. leffingwell’s perplexity is the perplexity of the scientific person. that burns should have anything to do with illegitimacy of scotia would probably seem ridiculous to the scientific mind, but i believe that burns, and the spirit of loose living for which he stands, have been to no little extent responsible for bringing scotland to the discreditable and degrading pass indicated by dr. leffingwell’s figures.
in ireland the rate of illegitimacy is 4.4, in scotland, 21.5 to each thousand unmarried women. now, the poet who stands in the same relation to the irish people as burns does to the scotch is thomas moore. he has given ireland quite as considerable a body[185] of songs as burns has given to scotland. he is just as essentially irish as burns is scotch; but compare the tone of the two men. one of them gives you the lass who made the bed to me, the other, rich and rare were the gems she wore. in reading burns you find that quite two thirds of what he has written is marred by unpleasant and libidinous suggestion, but there is not a line of moore which would not pass muster in a ladies’ school. to the rantin’ roarin’ billies of scotland the difference may form material for a sneer, but in the long run, clearly, the advantage is with the women of ireland. if scotland wishes to get rid of her drunkenness and to lessen the crime which arises out of it, and if she wishes to bring herself into line with the ordinary standards of decency, she will, i am afraid, have to put a little less trust in that mighty performer before the flesh—robert burns.
