ntrol. Ca' the guilty
one what you will--a prime minister, a capitalist, a king. Is it no
hard to mak' a wrong thing richt when it's a' his fault?

But suppose you stop and think, and you come tae see that some of your
troubles lie at your ain door? What's easier then than to mak' them
come straight? There are things that are wrong wi' the world that we
maun all pitch in together to mak' richt--I'm kenning that as well as
anyone. But there's muckle that's only for our own selves to correct,
and until that's done let's leave the others lie.

It's as if a man waur sair distressed because his toon was a dirty
toon. He'd be thinking of hoo it must look when strangers came riding
through it in their motor cars. And he'd aye be talking of what a bad
toon it was he dwelt in; how shiftless, how untidy. And a' the time,
mind you, his ain front yard would be full o' weeds, and the grass no
cut, and papers and litter o' a' sorts aboot.

Weel, is it no better for that man to clean his ain front yard first?
Then there'll be aye ane gude spot for strangers to see. And there'll
be the example for his neighbors, too. They'll be wanting their places
to look as well as his, once they've seen his sae neat and tidy. And
then, when they've begun tae go to work in sic a fashion, soon the
whole toon will begin to want to look weel, and the streets will look
as fine as the front yards.

When I hear an agitator, a man who's preaching against all things as
they are, I'm always afu' curious aboot that man. Has he a wife? Has
he bairns o' his ain? And, if he has, hoo does he treat them?

There's men, you know, who'll gang up and doon the land talkin' o'
humanity. But they'll no be kind to the wife, and their weans will run
and hide awa' when they come home. There's many a man has keen een for
the mote in his neighbor's eye who canna see the beam in his own--
that's as true to-day as when it was said first twa thousand years
agane.

I ken fine there's folk do no like me. I've stood up and talked to
them, from the stage, and I've heard say that Harry Lauder should
stick to being a comic, and not try to preach. Aye, I'm no preacher,
and fine I ken it. And it's no preaching I try to do; I wish you'd a'
understand that. I'm only saying, whiles I'm talking so, what I've
seen and what I think. I'm but one plain man who talks to others like
him.

"Harry," I've had them say to me, in wee toons in America, "ca' canny
here. There's a muckle o' folk