The change to modern domestic habits, more especially the increasing lateness of the dinner hour, has gradually extinguished most of the social clubs that used to make so prominent a feature in the society of the larger towns of Scotland. An effort was made in Edinburgh some thirty years ago to start a new club at which the literary, artistic, and scientific workers in the city might informally meet and enjoy each other’s company and conversation over a glass of whisky and water, with a pipe, cigar or cigarette. Its meetings were fixed for Saturday evening, so as to avoid, as far as might be, dinner engagements, which were less frequently fixed for that than for the other evenings of the week. It began with considerable success, and continued for a number of years to be a chief centre of cultivated intercourse. But it too has now gone the way of its predecessors. The proverbial patriotism of a Scot shows itself not merely in his love of his country. His attachment binds him still more closely to his shire, to his town, or even to his parish. This intense devotion to the natal district could not be more forcibly illustrated than by the remark of an Aberdonian who, in a company of his fellow townsmen met together in Edinburgh, appealed to them by asking, ‘Tak’ awa’ Aberdeen and twal mile round about, an’ faure are ye?’ There are times and places, however, where even the most perfervid Scot, Aberdonian or other, is compelled to be candid. Another native of the granite city, in his first visit to London, was taken into St. Paul’s Cathedral. He gazed around for a few moments in silent astonishment, and at last exclaimed to the friend who accompanied him, ‘My certy, but this makes a perfect feel (fool) o’ the Kirk o’ Foot Dee.’ [Sidenote: PROVOSTS AND BAILIES] Local patriotism was fostered by the multiplication of clubs, even in small towns. But in these places also the advance of the modern spirit seems to have destroyed the old club-life. There remain, however, the trade corporations, or guilds, and the magistracy, which in the old burghs still form centres round which much of the life and human interests of these communities cluster. To be a bailie, still more to attain to the dignity of provost, has long been an object of ambition, even in the most insignificant place, and much scheming and string-pulling continue to be carried on in order to obtain the coveted position: For never title yet so mean could prove But there was eke a mind which did that title love.