Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 270, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1919 — Hard to Trace Saying’s Origin. [ARTICLE]

Hard to Trace Saying’s Origin.

The original of “Where MacGregor .sUs there- js the head of the table” i reniallis In disputed It is not in Scott’s “Rob Roy." that Highland ca 111 e [poacher and levler of blackmail, while ’ Ms T7 own injuries. But it" was peculiarly a Scottish idea 4 of i precedence, shared, however, among . all people. There is Johnny Groat’s i octagon house at the northeastern extremity of Scotland having these ; geometrical sides so that each son ahd head of eight Groat families could j epter at his’own dbor and sit at each i upper end of ati eight-sided tableL Ralph Waldo l>i n( ‘ r<on in his “The v American Scholar" says: “The great Atrsr -thrirriv thfr tariafi ' the table." Now Theodore Parker, the famous Unitarian scholar, insisted that Mae Gregor was the proper name. But i Cervantes in "Don Quixote." in chajA ‘ ter XXVI, says: “.‘Sit there?, clodpate cried hs; for let me sit whereever 1 will that will still be the upper end and the place of worship to thge.”*