John Falkirk's Cariches (1820s)/Janet Clinker's Oration
JANET CLINKER’S ORATION.
On the virtues of the Old Women, and
the Pride of the Young.
The madness of this unmuzzled age has driven me to mountains of thoughts, and a continued meditation; it is enough to make an auld wife rin red wud, and drive a body beyond the halter’s end of ill nature, to see what I see, and hear what I hear: Therefore the hinges of my anger are broke, and the bands of my good nature are burst in two, the door of civility is laid quite open, plain speech and mild admonition is of none effect; nothing must be used now but thunder-bolts of reproach, tartly trimmed in a tantalizing stile, roughly redd up, and manufactured thro’ an auld Matron’s mouth, who is indeed but frail in the teeth, but will squeeze surprisingly with her auld gums until her very chaft-blades crack in the crushing of your vice.
I shall branch out my discourse into four heads.
1st. What I have seen, and been witness to.
2d. What I now see, and am witness to.
3d. What I have heard do hear, and cannot help; I mean, the difference between the old women and the young.
4th. Conclude with an advice to Young Men and Young Women how to avoid the buying of Janet Juniper’s stinking butter which will have a rotten ritt on their stomach as they live.
5th. The first thing, then, I see and observe is, That a wheen daft giddy headed, cock-nosed, juniper-nebbed mothers, bring up a wheen sky-racket, dancing daughters, a’ bred up to be ladies, without so much as the breadth of their lufe of land! It is an admiration to me, where the lairds are a’ to come frae that’s to be coupled to them! Work na, na, my bairn must not work, she’s to be a Lady; they ca’ her Miss. I must have her ears bor’d, says old Mumps the mother. Thus the poor pet is brought up like a motherless lamb, or a parrot in a cage; they learn nothing but to prick and sew, and fling their feet when the fiddle plays; so they become a parcel of yellow-fac’d female tailors, very unequal matches for countrymen; just Flanders-babies, brought up in a box, and must be carried in a basket; knows nothing but pinching poverty, hunger and pride; can neither milk kye, muck a byre, card, spin, nor yet keep a cow from a corn-rig. The most of such, are as blind pennyworths as buying pigs in pocks, and ought only to be matched with Tacket-makers, tree-trimmers, and male tailors, that they may be male and female agreeable in trade, since their piper-faced fingers are not for hard labour; yet they might also pass in a pinch for a black sutor’s wife, for the stitching of white seams round the mouth of a lady’s shoe; or with barbers and bakers they might be buckled, because of their muslin mouth and pincobeck speeches, when barm is scant, they can blow up their bread with fair wind; and when the razor is rough, can trim their chafts with a fair tale, oil their peruke with her white lips, and powder the deau’s pow with a French puff. They are all versed in all the sciences of flattery, musical tunes, horn-pipes, and country-dances, though perfect in none but the reel of Gammon.
Yet these are they, the fickle farmer fixes his fancy upon; a bundle of clouts, a skeleton of bones; Maggy and the mutch, like twa fir-sticks an’ a pickle tow, neither for his palate nor his pow; very unproper plenishing, neither for his profit nor her pleasure, to plout her hands thro’ Hawkey’s caff-cog, is a hateful hardship for Mammy’s pet, and will hack a’ her hands. All this I have seen and heard, and been witness to, but my pen being a goose quill, cannot expose their names nor place of abode, but warns the working men out of their way.
2d I see another sort, who can work and maun work till they be married, and become mistress themselves; but when they get husbands, all their thrift leaves them. Before that, they wrought as for a wager, they span as for a premium, brisked as for a brag scour’d their din skins as a wauker does worsted blankets, kept as mim in the mouth as a Minister’s wife, yet the whole of their toil is the trimming of their rigging, tho’ their hulls be everlastingly in a leaking condition; their backs and their bellies are box’d about with the fins of a big fish, six petticoats a gown and apron, besides a side sark down to the ancle-bones: ah! what monstrous rags are here! what of cloth is consumed for the covering of but one pair of buttocks! I leave it to the judgement of any ten tailors in town, if thirty pair of men’s breeches may not be cut from a little above the easing of Bessy’s bum; and this makes her a motherly woman, as stately a fabric as ever strade to market or mill. But when she’s married, she turns a madman; her mistress did not work much, and why should she? Her mother ay said she wad be a lady, but could never tell where her lands lay; but when money is all spent, credit broken and conduct out of keeping, a wheen bonny bubly bairns, crying ‘piece minny,’ ‘passie minny,’ the witless wanton waster is at her wit’s end: work now, or want, and do not say that the world has war’d you; but lofty Noddle your giddy headed mother has led you astray, by learning you to be a Lady, before you was fit to be a servant lass, by teaching you laziness instead of hard labour, by giving you such a high conceit of yourself, that no body thinks any thing of you now; and you may judge yourself to be but little worth; after all, my dear dirty face, when you begin the warld again, be perfectly rich, before you be gentle, work hard for what you gain, and you’ll ken better how to guide it; for pride is an imperfect fortune, and a ludicrous life will not last long?
Another sort I see, who has got more silver than sense, more gold than good nature, more muslins and means than good manners; tho’ a sack can hold their silver, six houses and a half cannot contain their ambitious desires. Fortunatus’ wonderful purse would fail in fetching in the fourth part of their worldly wants: and the children imitate their mothers, chattering like hungry cranes crying ill, I want! I want! ever craving, wilfully wasting, till all be brought to a doleful dish of desolation, and with cleanness of teeth, a full breast, an empty belly, big pockets without pence, pinching penury, perfect poverty, drouth, hunger, want of money and friends both, old age dim eyes feeble joints, without shoes or clothes, the real fruits of a bad marriage, which brings faith and repentance in one day.
3d. Another thing I see, hear, and cannot help, is the breeding of bairns, and bringing them up like bill-flirks: they gie them wealth of meat, but no manners. But when I was a bairn, if I did not bend to obedience, I ken mysel what I got, which learn’d me what to gie mine again; if they had tell’d me, tuts, or prute no, I laid them o’er my knee, and a com’d crack for crack o’er their hurdies, like a knock beetle on a harn, web, till the red wats stood on their hips; this brought obedience into my house- and banish’d dods and ill nature out of the door; I dang the de’il out o’ them, and dadded them like a wet dish-clout, till they did my bidding; but now the bairns are brought up to spit fire in their mither’s face, and cast dirt at their auld daddies: How can they be good, who never saw a sample of it; or reverence old age, who practised no precepts in their youth? How can they love their parents, who gave them black poision instead of good principles; who shewed them no good example?
Now, after all, when a poor man wants a good wife, let him wale ane that has been lang servant in æ house, well liked by the bairns, and the bairns’ mither; that’s the lass that will make a good wife: For them that dauts the young bairns, will ay be kind to auld fooks an they had them.
Finis.