for Jock or Jean in the city? For at this season, on the
threshold of another year of calamity and stubborn
conflict, men feel a need to draw closer the links that
unite them; they reckon the number of their friends, like
allies before a war; and the prayers grow longer in the
morning as the absent are recommended by name into God's
keeping.

On the day itself, the shops are all shut as on a
Sunday; only taverns, toyshops, and other holiday
magazines, keep open doors. Every one looks for his
handsel. The postman and the lamplighters have left, at
every house in their districts, a copy of vernacular
verses, asking and thanking in a breath; and it is
characteristic of Scotland that these verses may have
sometimes a touch of reality in detail or sentiment and a
measure of strength in the handling. All over the town,
you may see comforter'd schoolboys hasting to squander
their half-crowns. There are an infinity of visits to be
paid; all the world is in the street, except the daintier
classes; the sacramental greeting is heard upon all
sides; Auld Lang Syne is much in people's mouths; and
whisky and shortbread are staple articles of consumption.
From an early hour a stranger will be impressed by the
number of drunken men; and by afternoon drunkenness has
spread to the women. With some classes of society, it is
as much a matter of duty to drink hard on New-year's Day
as to go to church on Sunday. Some have been saving
their wages for perhaps a month to do the season honour.
Many carry a whisky-bottle in their pocket, which they