The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 7 (February 1, 1932.)

A Classical Wheel-barrow

A Classical Wheel-barrow.

Entertained by South of the Border Scots on Nov. 26, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald declared “Scotland is a spirit.” There was certainly, in the Scotland of his youth, a spirit of education perhaps found nowhere else. An old barrow-man in the streets of Lossiemouth nails on to his barrow a piece of wood on which to rest a book, and as he walks behind the barrow, and as his lips chant “Rags and Bones,” his mind is busy with Latin and Greek. Seeing young Mac-Donald with a book, the barrowman says: “Are you interested in these things? Then, tak' that.” And he gives the youth a translation of Herodotus. Up the street marches a chanter of “Rags and Bones,” and down the street walks a future Prime Minister. Where, outside of Scotland, would you beat it?