CHAPTER THE THIRD.
ON OLD SCOTTISH CONVIVIALITY.
The next change in manners which has been effected, in the memory of many now living, regards the habits of conviviality, or, to speak more plainly, regards the banishment of _drunkenness_ from polite society.

It is indeed a most important and blessed change.

But it is a change the full extent of which many persons now alive can hardly estimate.

Indeed, it is scarcely possible to realise the scenes which took place seventy or eighty years back, or even less.

In many houses, when a party dined, the ladies going away was the signal for the commencement of a system of compulsory conviviality.