Dear Maister Punch,—I’ve heerd often enough aboot ye as a kind sort o’ buddy, whae putts the warld richt, when it has gaun wrang, and I’m thinking to write tae ye, a screed about thae feckless critters, the South’ren tourists whae owerrun Auld Scotland at this time o’ the year with their coo-ponds and their excursion tuckets, thinking to tak their pleesures on the cheap. Noo, the hotels in this country are famed for their vera moderate charges. I mysel have had a real good breakfast (they ca’ it dijohnny now) for no more than five shullings—that’s cheap enough. And as for a bed! weel, no one can find faut with half of a sovereign? And yet thae tourists are aye complainin’. Hotel folk in Scotland should have fixed charges throughout. I, for yin, will make free to say that I will cheerfully pay them, when I find it necessary, one pound ten shullin’s for bed and breakfast and maybe half-a-croon for a good glass of the cratur, as a settler afterwards. If the hotel folk would all agree to some moderate charge like that, they could think aboot Culloden with eequanimity!

Yours most friend-like,

Alexander Macwhustle.