I hope that this explanation will sufficiently vindicate my Scottish
friends from _M.L.B_.'s aspersion. Scotchmen improvident! never: for
workhouses are as scarce among them as bundle-wood, or intelligent
travellers. Recollect that I am not in a passion; but this I will say,
though the gorge choke me, that _M.L.B._ strongly reminds me of the
French princess, who when she heard of some manufacturers dying in the
provinces of starvation, said, "Poor fools! die of starvation--if I
were them I would eat bread and cheese first."

The next time _M.L.B._ visits Scotland, let him ask the first peasant
he meets how to keep eggs fresh for years; and he will answer _rub a
little oil or butter over them, within a day or two after laying, and
they will keep any length of time, perfectly fresh_. This discovery,
which was made in France by the great Reamur, depends for its success
upon the oil filling up the pores of the egg-shell, and thereby
cutting off the perspiration between the fluids of the egg and
the atmosphere, which is a necessary agent in putrefaction. The
preservation of eggs in this manner, has long been practised in all
"braid Scotland;" but it is not so much as known in our own boasted
land of stale eggs and bundle-wood.

In Edinburgh, I mean the Scottish and not the Irish capital, _M.L.B._
may actually eat _new laid_ eggs a _year old!_ How is it that this
great comfort is not practised in the navy? The Scotch have also a
hundred other domestic practices for the saving of the hard earned
"siller;" and are far from the commission of any such idle waste as
_M.L.B._'s story exhibits. S.S.

P.S. Tinder-boxes are unknown in Scotland, and I am sure _M.L.B._ if