Scotch Wit and Humor

"It's just the whusky, Mr. Walls, and I couldna get ony at fourpence, so yer awn the landlord a penny, an' he says it's time you were payin' whet's doon i' the book."

Sandy Wood had the most eccentric ways of curing people. One of his patients, the Hon. Mrs. ----, took it into her head that she was a hen, and that her mission in life was to h...

The following anecdote is told in illustration of the Scotch veneration for the Sabbath: A geologist, while in the country, and having his pocket hammer with him, took it out an...

The story of the happy young couple who quarreled on the first day of their housekeeping life about the "rat" or the "mouse" which ran out of the fireplace, it seems, had its or...

The Rev. Hamilton Paul, a Scotch clergyman, is said to have been a reviver of Dean Swift's walk of wit in choice of texts. For example, when he left the town of Ayr, where he wa...

A preacher of the name of Ker, on being inducted into a church in Teviotdale, told the people the relation there was to be between him and them in the following words: "Sirs, I...

Dean Ramsay tells an amusing story of the cool self-sufficiency of the young Scottish domestic--a boy who, in a very quiet, determined way, made his exit from a house into which...

"Weel, ye see, whan I cam' here, sax year sin', I jist weighed eight stane, an' I'm fully seventeen stane noo; sae ye see that about nine stane a' me belangs to this parish an'...

A Highland census taker contributed the following story to _Chambers'_: I had a bad job with the Miss M'Farlanes. They are three maiden ladies--sisters. It seems the one would n...

"The matter is this, doctor. Ye see the clock yonder on the face of the new church? Well, there is no clock really there--nothing but the face of the clock. There is no truth in...

The beadle, after being severely lectured on his extravagant conduct, was ordered to take the candles to the kitchen, and henceforth and at all times he was to be deprived of th...

A pastor of a small congregation of Dissenters in the west of Scotland, who, in prayer, often employed terms of familiarity towards the great Being whom he invoked, was addressi...

When the son of a certain London banker had eloped to Scotland with a great heiress whom he married, still retaining a paternal taste for parsimony, he objected to the demand of...

An inebriate, some time back, got into a tramcar in Glasgow, and became very troublesome to the other passengers; so much so that it was proposed to eject him. A genial and righ...

The following dialogue occurred in a little country inn, not so long ago as the internal evidence might lead one to suppose. The interlocutors are an English tourist and a smart...

A young Englishman was at a party mostly composed of Scotchmen, and though he made several attempts to crack a joke, he failed to evoke a single smile from the countenances of h...

_Scotch Wit and Humor_ is a fairly representative collection of the type of wit and humor which is at home north of the Tweed--and almost everywhere else--for are not Scotchmen...

_Haggis._ A pudding, made in a sheep's stomach, with oatmeal, suet, the heart, liver and lungs of the sheep, minced down and seasoned with salt, pepper, and onions, and boiled f...