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.
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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”:

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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
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