Scotch cleanliness. vide Cottagers of Glenburnie / [graphic] : N. 1

"A room in a Scottish inn: two travellers sit at a round breakfast-table; the man looks round in horror at a barelegged slattern who stoops to blow at a fire from which smoke pours; he says: "Sounds. we will be suffocated with dust & smoke". The girl says: "The Dee'l blaw this Fire w'e his Muckle A-se for ise na Fash mysel mair we't". Broken bellows and a shovelful of coal lie on the carpet. A barelegged fellow wearing a Scots cap pours water from a kettle over a tea-pot; the astonished lady exclaims: "Mercy on us look here my Dear the fellow is pouring hot Water on the top of the Tea Pot without taking the lid off & before he has brought Tea to put in it". The man says: "Feggs, you may skirll & Waloch as lang's ye like--there's nane O the House will put themsel's out o' their ain gude Auld Gaits". A savage-looking mongrel befouls the carpet and an 'Essay on Cleaness' [sic]. Through a doorway (the door broken from its hinges) is seen a woman (right) seated by a kitchen fire, a dram-bottle beside her, keys hanging from her waist. She says: "Aye, Aye. ring till ye're tired, I canna be Fash'd". Everything in both rooms denotes squalor but not poverty."--British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state