Pamela, Lady Campbell, to Emily Eden, January 7, 1821:
“I cannot bear Scotland in spite of every natural beauty, the people are so odious… Their hospitality takes one in, but that is kept up because it is their pride. Their piety seems to me mere love of argument and prejudice; it is the custom to make a saturnalia of New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day they drown themselves in whisky. Last New Year’s Eve being Sunday, they would not break the Sabbath, but sat down after the preaching till twelve o’clock; the moment that witching hour arrived, they thought their duty fulfilled, seized the whisky, and burst out of their houses, and ran about drinking the entire night, and the whole of Monday and Monday night too. This is no exaggeration, you have no idea the state they are in—men lying about the streets, women as drunk as they—in short, I never was more disgusted.”
From The Folio Book of Days (Folio Society, London: 2002).
