citrate of magnesia, with which to cool myself
down the last thing at night, and pick myself
up the first thing in the morning.

Whisky in Scotland is a national institution.
The implements for making toddy are household
gods, which descend as heirlooms from one
generation to another. Those implements
consist of a brass or silver toddy-kettle, a quaint
black whisky-bottle of the Dutch character, a
certain number of stout tumblers with feet to
them, little square or oblong doylies sacred to
toddy, and a dozen or two of silver toddy-ladles.
No householder considers himself completely set
up in life, unless he possesses the proper
implements for making and drinking toddy. And the
consumption of this national compound is a grand
ceremonial, a solemn sacrifice to Bacchus,
conducted with great state and circumstance. The
dinner is nothing, the toddy afterwards is
everything. I have heard that my grandfather was
always very impatient of the concluding courses
of dinner. The cheese was a formula for which he
had no toleration. He would never give any one
an opportunity of taking cheese. He would say
to the guests all round as fast as he could talk,
giving no one a chance to reply, "Ye for cheese?
ye for cheese? ye for cheese? Naebody for
cheese, tak' awa' the cheese." And the cheese
would be whipped away accordingly, the cloth
cleared, and the implements of toddy set out on
the polished mahogany. No dessert accompanies
the after-dinner toddy-drinking in Scotland.
Apples and pears, almonds and raisins, and such-
like sweet fare, are considered fit only for women
and children. It would be a desecration of the
high and severe altar sacred to whisky, to place
eatables of any kind upon it. The sacrifice
admits of libations only. You are expected to
put a glass and a half of whisky in every tumbler,
and your host keeps his eye on you to see that
you don't shirk. A wine-glassful and a half is
the minimum which any one can venture to put
into his tumbler without losing caste as a true
Scot. If you cannot stand to your double-
shotted tumbler, you are no worthy son of Scotia.
But a little more is allowable than a glass and a
half in a tumbler; and this wee drappie more is
pleasantly called an "ekey." An "ekey" is
given by a tremulous motion of the hand—
allowed to be involuntary—just as the second
glass is half full. You may happen to fill the
glass; but it is only an "ekey," and doesn't
count. There are many innocent diminutives
used in Scotland to soften the name of whisky.
It would sound very horrid and be unpleasantly
suggestive of habitual intemperance, to be
always asking for a "glass of whisky." So until
it comes to the regular toddy-time, you take a
"wee drappie," or a "thimbleful," or a "skitey,"
and you take it with an air of being troubled
with a stomach complaint, and make faces after
it as if you didn't like it, and only took it as a
medicine. Under the name of a "drappie," or
a "skitey," whisky tastes just as hot in the
mouth, only you may persuade yourself and
others that you haven't had any whisky. It is
because whisky-toddy is an institution in Scotland,
because it is consumed in high state, and
because every household has its toddy gods,
that we derive the impression that the Scotch
are a people inordinately given to drink. I am
inclined to believe, however, that there is quite
as much drinking going on in London as in any
town in Scotland. Scotchmen take a good deal
of toddy after dinner, and perhaps a "skitey"
with the forenoon's "piece" (Anglicè, lunch),
but they are not in the habit of drinking at
public-house bars. They take nearly all their
drinks sitting round their own tables, and I
question if the maximum number of tumblers
exceeds the quantity which is sipped in "drops"
and "drains" in English taverns by men who
are regarded as models of moderation and
sobriety. We may at least say this, that a
Scotchman takes his drink like a gentleman.

Toddy-drinking in Scotland, however, is not
so universal nor so religiously pursued as it was.
An old fourteen-tumbler man complained to me
lately, that the new race of Scotchmen were very
degenerate. He was deploring bitterly that
there was not a man in all Scotland now, who
could take his fourteen tumblers.

"I canna think fat's come to the young men
noo-a-days," he said; "they run awa' frae their
toddy at the second tumbler, and jine the
leddies—they're just becoming effeeminate."

NEW CHINA.

ABOUT the year 1854, Chinamen came over in
shoals to the Australian colonies, dressed in a
coarse dark-blue cotton, cut in the most primitive
form. They were not flowery Orientals out
of picture-books, which represent only mandarins
and other high personages in full dress. I have
a belief that the first tailor who made a
Chinaman's slops worked for Noah. The upper
portion is a smock, not so elaborate as the English
peasant's smock-frock, but a short straight
jacket buttoning down the front, and having long
straight and tight sleeves. The jacket reaches
to about the hips, and the sleeves come over the
finger-tips, serving as cuffs and gloves, and being
turned back during any active work. The
trousers are a blue bag, through which a pair of
brown bare miserable apologies for legs are
thrust. When not barefoot, the poorer sort of
Chinese wear cork-soled slippers with short toe-
caps, but no heel-pieces or "lifts." Their heads
are adorned with plenty of coarse coal-black
hair, always neatly plaited into a long queue.
Those who are short of hair, eke out the
quantity and length by the insertion of black
silk. Often this tail reaches below the bend
of the knee, but ends usually where the
monkey's tail begins. The hat of the working
Chinaman is a machine most like the seat of a
large cane-bottomed chair, puffed up into a
conical shape, and lined with rushes and leaves.
The figure of the Chinaman is not complete
without his pair of panniers, round, and three
feet deep. He places them, equally weighted,
on the ends of a six-foot bamboo rod, secures