SCOTTISH VIRTURES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 74, 21 December 1937, Page 6

SCOTTISH VIRTURES

Address To St. Andrew o Burns Club

“The distinguishing characteristics of a good Scotsman arc independence, endurance, thrift, racial pride, love of learning and a peculiar sense of humour,” said Mr. O. C. Mazengarb, at a meeting of the St. Andrew Burns Club, in Wellington last night, when he spoke on the characteristics of the Scot.

In tracing the development of these virtues as national attributes he stressed the large part played by independence, which, he said, provided a key to the understanding of the other traits. “In these days when men are being encouraged in certain quarters to despise thrift as if it were the equivalent of meanness and to lean on their fellows for assistance, it is well for you members of a Scottish society to remember that it was by jij mere accident that the noblest assertions of will to independence, both' national and individual, came from the lips of a Scottish bard. ‘Scots wh’ hae' and ‘a man’s a man,’ will live as long, and only as long as men prize industry and self-reliance and scornfully refuse to do homage to mere rank or wealth,” said Mr. Mazengarb. The speaker discussed the Scottish yearnifig for education and analysed th<>ir‘ humour, an understanding of which involved a knowledge of Scottish history and character.

During the evening items were given by the following; Miss Gaudin, Miss Jeanette Briggs, Mrs. "Wiltshire and Messrs. Stevens, Seaton and J, G. Mac* Kenede.' Mrs. Hall was the accompanist, and Pipe-Major A. Barclay played the pipe music.