A Century's Changes. 57 



place of honour in and svas regarded as the " treasure chest " of 

 the poor man's dwelling ; to keep it well plenished was the 

 object of his life. An acquaintance of my youth, a single woman, 

 stalwart and independent, used to say that she sometimes would 

 give a tramp " a piece," but she never allowed him to come between 

 her and the barrel. It was to have always something in it that she 

 bent her back, and straddled among the furrows, and tore through 

 the yellow harvest, and bi'ought the sweat on her sun-browned 

 face through the toilsome days. Another acquaintance of mine 

 once said, " The ' Quality ' :nay tak' tea if they like, but workin' 

 folk maun hae porridge.'' It used to be told by Cai'lyle that 

 James Mill, the utilitarian philosopher, father of the more 

 famous John, and by birth an Aberdonian, took a craving in his 

 old days for oatmeal. This, in London, where the said James 

 was living, was ill to obtain. It occurred to him that Carlyle, 

 who was then also living in London, and who had a supreme 

 contempt for Mill's philosophy, might have it, so he sent to 

 enquire. The meal was forthcoming, with the remark, kindly 

 but grimly made, " It's a gran' thing to see an auld man return- 

 ing to the foundation o' his being." 



Now the old-fashioned " treasure chest " has been pushed into 

 the background in a great measure by the flour bag and the tea- 

 pot. Fifty or sixty years ago Jess Henderson, who also ran 

 post, brought up most of the " loaf bread " that was used on the 

 Hutton side of the parish on her back once a week. Now it 

 takes five bakers' vans to bring it, and the population has 

 decreased. When " Old Macmaa," one of the famous characters 

 of Hutton, about whom a predecessor of mine, Mr Wright, 

 wrote a ballad, was on his last legs (it was in the twenties, and 

 Macmaa was near a hundred), he was in the habit of getting a 

 glass of toddy and half a slice of bread as a cordial. Sometimes 

 he would leave a morsel of the bread, and his grandchildren 

 would rush for it as for the rarest dainty. But it is allowable 

 to question whether here, as in educational matters, there 

 has not been loss as well as gain. The old school of French 

 peasantry, I believe, are finding out that the better living 

 and better education which their sons enjoy unsteady them 

 at the plough ; and one can understand well enough how it may 

 be so. For man is afiected fundamentally, even in his moral 

 nature, by the amount and quality of his food supply ; he is 

 influenced probably far more tlian we imagine through the 



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