THE TRUTH "ABOUT PORRIDGE [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—On the road to Timbuktu we understand that Scotland can take care of itself and fight for its friends, but we protest against amateur statisticians flinging stink-bombs from the shelter of our guide and friend, the Spectator.
However the true Scot may thrive on such diet as oatmeal, bagpipes, and the mixture of both in the form of haggis, he cannot force his diet on the aliens who swamped this country with non-combatants when her men were filling trenches and graves in Flanders. If E.B.B. will take pains to verify the figures in his diary, he will find that those for pauperism, mortality (general and infant) and rejections for the army are swollen and denationalized out of recognition by the districts into which Irish industrials have flocked by the scores of thousands, especially since 1914. The diet in these cases is largely whisky, tea, bacon and white bread.
The American Government's statistics on the career of emigrants are not given, but they demand an even more careful scrutiny. It might be worth E.B.B.'s while to enquire how the Scot stands in the British Dominions and dependencies, and why it is that in few bush stores in Africa do you fail to find a liberal stock of a famous and quickly prepared brand of oats that has never known Scotland.
Oats, like statistics, when used with discrimination, can be relied on to produce good results the world over, though it would be wiser not to mix them.—I am, Sir, &e., B. Togo, West Africa,
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