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diff --git a/36014.txt b/36014.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..542f5f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/36014.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1743 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Notes on Old Edinburgh, by Isabella L. Bird + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Notes on Old Edinburgh + +Author: Isabella L. Bird + +Release Date: May 2, 2011 [EBook #36014] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES ON OLD EDINBURGH *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +WORKS BY DR. JOHN BROWN. + + +Horae Subsecivae. Sixth Edition. 1 Volume, Extra Foolscap 8vo, Price 7s. 6d. + +Locke and Sydenham. New Edition. Extra Foolscap 8vo, Price 7s. 6d. + +Letter to the Rev. John Cairns, D.D. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, Sewed, +Price 2s. + +Arthur H. Hallam; Extracted from 'Horae Subsecivae.' Foolscap, Sewed, Price +2s.; Cloth, Price 2s. 6d. + +Rab and his Friends; Extracted from 'Horae Subsecivae.' Forty-fifth +Thousand. Foolscap, Sewed, Price 6d. + +Marjorie Fleming: A Sketch. Fifteenth Thousand. Foolscap, Sewed, Price 6d. + +Our Dogs; Extracted from 'Horae Subsecivae.' Nineteenth Thousand. Foolscap, +Sewed, Price 6d. + +Rab and his Friends. With Illustrations by Sir GEORGE HARVEY, R.S.A., Sir +J. NOEL PATON, R.S.A., and J. B. Cheap Edition. In One Volume, Cloth, +Price 3s. 6d. + +'With Brains, Sir;' Extracted from 'Horae Subsecivae.' Foolscap, Sewed, +Price 6d. + +Minchmoor. Price 6d. + +Jeems the Door-keeper. A Lay Sermon. Price 6d. + + +EDINBURGH: EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS. + + + + + NOTES ON OLD EDINBURGH + + + BY THE AUTHOR OF + 'THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN AMERICA.' + + [Illustration: INSCRIPTION OVER DOORWAY IN BLACKFRIARS WYND. + + _English Visitor._--'So this is Blackfriars Wynd!' + + _Woman._--'No, it's hell's mouth.'] + + + EDINBURGH + EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS + 1869. + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE BY THE REV. DR. HANNA. + + +Was ever a more vivid picture of more revolting scenes offered to the +reader's eye than that which the following pages present? If any doubt +creep into his mind as to the accuracy of its details, he has but to read +the reports of Dr. LITTLEJOHN and Dr. ALEXANDER WOOD, in which everything +here stated, not vouched for by the writer herself, is authenticated. Can +nothing be done, shall nothing be done, to wipe out such foul blots from +the face of our fair city? One effort among others is being made in this +direction by the Association recently organized for improving the +condition of the poor. It is in the hope of winning for this Association +the support of all the humane among us that these "Notes" are published. +It would be a happy, and not surely hopeless issue, if, by the combined +and concentrated endeavours of all interested in the welfare of the poor, +such a change were effected that, fifty years hence, it were doubted or +denied that ever such a state of things existed as is here so graphically +portrayed. + +W. H. + + 6, CASTLE TERRACE, + _Jan. 20, 1869_. + + + + +NOTES ON OLD EDINBURGH. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +It has been my fortune to see the worst slums of the Thames district of +London, of Birmingham, and other English and foreign cities, the +"water-side" of Quebec, and the Five Points and mud huts of New York, and +a short time ago a motive stronger than curiosity induced me to explore +some of the worst parts of Edinburgh--not the very worst, however. Honest +men can have no desire to blink facts, and no apology is necessary for +stating the plain truth, as it appears to me, that there are strata of +misery and moral degradation under the shadow of St. Giles's crown and +within sight of Knox's house, more concentrated and unbroken than are to +be met with elsewhere, even in a huge city which, by reason of a district +often supposed to have no match for vice and abjectness, is continually +held up to public reprobation. The Rev. R. Maguire, rector of St. James's, +Clerkenwell, accompanied me through a portion only of the district +visited, and he expressed his opinion then, and since more formally in +print, that more dirt, degradation, overcrowding, and consequent +shamelessness and unutterable wretchedness, exist in Edinburgh than in any +town of twice its size, or in any area of similar extent to the one +explored, taken from the worst part of London. With this opinion my own +convictions cordially concur. We have plenty of awful guilt-centres in +London--as, for instance, the alleys leading out of Liquorpond Street and +the New Cut, but even the worst are broken in upon by healthy +neighbourhoods. Here there is a loathsome infectious sore, occupying a +larger area than anywhere else--a district given up in great measure to +moral degradation, which extends from the Lawnmarket to Holyrood, from +Holyrood along the parallel streets of the Cowgate, the Grassmarket, and +the West Port, including most of the adjacent wynds and closes, and only +terminating with Cowfeeder Row. + +My object was to compare a certain section of Edinburgh, both by day and +night, with a similar area in the city before alluded to. In company with +two philanthropic gentlemen, who did not hesitate to expose these social +plague-spots, and guided in one mysterious locality by one of the +lieutenants of police, I explored at various times several closes in the +High Street, Cowgate, and West Port, going by "house-row." In all cases +the people were civil and willing to admit us, and few allowed us to +depart without expressing a hope that some good would come out of the +efforts proposed to be made for them. In many houses only the children +were at home, but they answered our questions with such quick +comprehension and painfully precocious intelligence that we were not left +in doubt as to the circumstances of their parents. + +It was a dry, warm morning. No rain had fallen for some weeks. There was a +rumour of cholera on the Rhine, and under its salutary influence various +sanitary precautions, such as lime-washing closes and stairs, had been +recently resorted to. The district might have looked cheerful had +cheerfulness been possible, so great was the contrast between its aspect +now and its look on a wet, murky, autumn day. The appearance of the lower +part of the High Street was as little pleasant as usual. Knots of men who +never seem to "move on" stared at the passers-by on the South Bridge, bold +girls lounged about and chaffed the soldiers, careworn women, and little +girls hardly less careworn, stood round the well with their pails--some of +the last, we learned, having stood there for two and three hours. There +were dirty little children as usual rolling in the gutter or sitting +stolidly on the kerb-stone; as usual, haggard, wrinkled, vicious faces +were looking out of the dusty windows above, and an air of joylessness, +weariness, and struggle hung over all. Truly has this street been named +the _Via Dolorosa_. + +The above-named well, close by John Knox's house, is a sign of one of the +standing grievances of this district of Edinburgh. It is the "water +supply" of the large population living in those many-storeyed houses which +give the immediate neighbourhood its picturesqueness. If it could tell the +tale of one day, we should have plenty of the sensational element, but it +would be the true tragedy of the real, suffering, everyday life of the +poor. From six in the morning till nearly midnight, it is the centre of a +throng, feminine mainly, but often essentially unwomanly in its language +and manners. As a horde of thirsty pilgrims struggles for the first +draught of the water of the bright oasis of the desert, so this crowd +often struggles for the first turn at the tap. In its more usual +condition, it is sad rather than belligerent, feeble in its scuffling, +loud-voiced in its abuse. Here the weakest go to the wall. Here children +carrying buckets nearly as big as themselves are sometimes known to wait +from one to five hours for the water which is to wash the faces, cook the +food, and quench the thirst of the family for the day. Here they wait, +losing time and gaining a precocious familiarity with evil from the +profanity and depravity of the talk and chaffing around them. To this well +the aged widow, who struggles hard to keep up appearances, with her white +mutch and neatly-pinned black shawl, totters with her pail down her dark +stair of 150 steps, up the steep close, and down the street, waiting with +the patience born of necessity in the heat, or rain, or snow, as the case +may be, till the younger and stronger have got their "turn," and then +stumbles with failing breath up her stair, the water, which is precious as +that of the well of Bethlehem, spilling as she goes. At what a cost does +she buy the whiteness of her mutch! Hither comes the young, weary-looking +mother, having locked up her young family in her eyrie. Heavily burdened +with care she looks. We may trust she forgets the perils of fire and +window at home; she scuffles feebly; street brawling is a new and +uncongenial thing to her, and she usually ends by losing the best part of +the morning. She is slowly dropping out of her cleanly habits. Can we +wonder? She thinks twice at least about scrubbing the floor, and it isn't +much use to wash her children's clothes when they have no place to play in +but the gutter. Here also come the small children with jugs, and hang +about for a frolic, learning to curse and swear and imitate the vices of +their elders, if they have not learned them before. + +It is a pitiful sight in the street, but followed to the homes this lack +of water helps to degrade, pity for the sufferers mingles with indignant +surprise that proprietors of the _best paying property_ to be found (for +so the closes are) have not been compelled ere this to have at least a +pipe and tap in every close. Outside the great Reformer's house is the +well of pure water, difficult of access for most, nearly inaccessible at +times to the feeble, the diffident, and the old. Under the same house is +the whisky-shop, easy enough to reach, and the whisky all too easy to +procure--only the laying down a few pence, and the fluid which makes life +brighter for an hour is at the lips without waiting or scuffling. How can +our sad and sorely-tempted ones escape the snare? Limited water and +unlimited whisky, crowded dens and unwholesome air; we need nothing more +to make a city full of drunkards. + +We followed this water grievance into thirty-seven houses that day, and +there was scarcely one in which it was not enlarged upon. Did our eyes +wander round a room ever so stealthily, its occupier was ready to +forestall the glance by saying, "Ah, sirs, it's the dirt ye're looking at, +but how's puir folk like us to be clean as has to haul every drop of water +from that well?" Did we shrink ever so slightly from a child whose head +and clothing were one mass of dirt, the movement was perceived, and the +want of water, the distance from the well, and the long long stair, were +the apologies offered. + +I merely give one instance, which might be multiplied almost indefinitely, +of the distress arising from this comparatively little thought-of cause. +In a wretched den on the seventh storey, none the brighter or lighter for +being nearer the skies, for it had no direct light, a family, consisting +of father, mother, and child of three years old, were fighting a hard +battle for life. On the floor, on a straw bed, the husband had been "down +with fever" for six weeks. He was wandering and murmuring incessantly, +"Drink! drink!" clutching all the time at a tin pitcher by his side which +contained water. He was too weak to lift it, and his wife, who expected +shortly to become a mother, was helping him to it every three or four +minutes. The bairn was crippled and mentally deficient, and kept crawling +into the ashes, so that between it and her husband the poor woman had not +a moment's rest. On a line across the room a half-washed sheet was +hanging, steaming as it dried. The atmosphere in the room was poisonous. +The woman said, "Ah, you are feeling the smell. Sometimes I think he'd get +better if we could have things clean about us. He's got bed-sores, and you +see they run a good deal, and I'm such a weak body, I can't haul water +enough to wash it out of the sheets. He drinks nearly all I bring--quarts +a day. He was always so fond of the water, he never tasted the whisky in +his life. He's been a good husband to me; and since we've come here I +can't get the water to keep him clean." In answer to inquiry, she said she +had waited half an hour at the well the night before, and in coming up the +long dark stair a drunk man had pushed against her and upset the whole +pailful. On our expressing some sympathy, she burst into tears, sobbing +out, "Oh, God only knows what it is to _slave_ after the water--it's +killing me and him too, _and in the glen we came from the bonnie burn ran +by the door_." In that moment, some cruel memory contrasted that foul +steaming sheet, whose poisonous fumes nearly overcame the strong, with the +linen washed on the grass by the burn, over which the birch and harebell +trembled, and bleached afterwards by the sun to the whiteness of snow. +They were evicted crofters from Perthshire, and misfortune, not drink or +vice, had brought them so low. Our sanitary reforms are too late for them, +for both went shortly afterwards to the land where "they shall thirst no +more." + +Travellers have often enlarged upon the hardships suffered by the +fellaheen of Egypt in carrying water for irrigating purposes. It is from +the free, pure Nile they draw it at will, and over the pure alluvial soil +they carry it. But this water grievance, which exists not only in the +Canongate and High Street, but in the Cowgate, the Grassmarket, the West +Port, and elsewhere, involves _female slavery_ in Edinburgh of the most +grinding description, and consequences from which the moralist and the +philanthropist may well shrink. This want of water involves not alone a +slavery which in many cases knows no Sabbath, and dirt which is a help to +degradation, but an absence of all arrangements for decency. Looking at +this subject from a stranger's stand-point, it seems perfectly credible +that the lack of all proper water supply in these crowded districts, the +impossibility which it creates of preserving physical self-respect, and +the evil influence on the young of the "wait" at the wells, is one among +the many causes of the lapsing of the masses in Edinburgh. The subject of +the water supply is beset with difficulties, but there is a possibility of +grappling with and overcoming them. The matter is more closely connected +with moral reform than we might think at first sight. In England we have a +proverb, "Cleanliness is next to godliness," and without indorsing it +fully, we may agree that physically filthy habits and moral impurity, +among the poor at least, are intimately associated. _It is impossible for +these people to be clean in their dwellings, clothes, or persons under +present circumstances._ It is inevitable that infectious diseases of the +most fatal kind must be generated and diffused. It is certain that the +spirit of murmuring against God is fostered by this lack of an element +which these female water-carriers suppose should be free to them as light +and air. The evil is becoming worse and worse as a larger and larger +population crowds into these subdivided dwellings, there, perforce almost, +to fall into habits lower than those of the beasts. It is well known that +drunkenness, disease, and degradation are the results of a deficient water +supply. It is more difficult to estimate statistically the broken health +and hearts of the female water-carriers. There is an economy of water and +a most prodigal expenditure of human suffering. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +In the Old Town, where the population of a village or a fashionable square +is constantly crammed into the six or seven storeys of one house, +_room-to-room_ visitation, for it is nothing else, affords a visitor in +one morning a glimpse of a state of things without a parallel. In no other +city could tenements be found without gas, without water-pipes, +water-closet, or sink, or temporary receptacle for ashes, and entered only +by one long dark stone stair, which return such enormous profits to their +owners as from 45 to 60 per cent. Scarcely elsewhere does one roof cover a +population of 290, 248, 240 persons, living in dens, honeycombed out of +larger rooms, without ventilation, without privacy, and often without +direct light. In no other city is the respectable mechanic compelled, for +want of house accommodation of a proper kind, to bring up his family in a +tenement which deserves indictment as a nuisance, or to pay L5, L6, or L8 +a year for a den swarming with vermin, with only a wooden partition to +keep off the sights and admit all the sounds of haunts of the most +degraded vice. In Edinburgh, which, in more respects than one, is set on a +hill and cannot be hid, there are 13,209 families, comprising not only the +vicious and abject, but large numbers of the poorer labouring class, +living in houses of but one room, and of these single rooms, 1530 are +inhabited by from six to fifteen persons! Further, by the last census, 120 +of these _shelters_, for they are not houses, were reported as without +windows, and 900 were cellars, nearly all of them dark, and many damp. +_These_ figures give the astounding result that the families living in one +room, and often herding together in closer proximity than animals would +endure, comprehend 66,000 persons, or considerably more than one-third of +the population of Edinburgh![1] + +The notes which follow are merely a commentary upon the above facts. My +room-to-room visitation on a single day included thirty-seven families +residing in a close south of the High Street and ten families in a close +south of the Cowgate. I do not give the names of either, in deference to +the feelings of respectable persons who are compelled by various causes to +reside in them. + +The entrance of the close which we selected is long and narrow, and so low +as to compel a man of average height to stoop. It is paved with round +stones, and from the slime in which they were embedded, and from a grating +on one side almost choked up with fish heads and insides, and other offal, +a pungent and disgusting effluvium was emitted. The width of this close is +four feet at the bottom, but the projecting storeys of the upper houses +leave only a narrow strip of quiet sky to give light below. A gutter ran +along one side of the close against the wall, and this, though so early in +the day, was in a state of loathsomeness not to be described. Very ragged +children, infinitely more ragged and dirty than those which offend our +eyes in the open street, were sitting on the edge of this gutter, sitting +as if they meant to sit there all day; not playing, not even quarrelling, +just _stupefying_. Foul air, little light, and bad food had already done +their work on most of them. Blear eyes, sore faces, and sore feet were +almost universal. Their matted hair and filthy rags were full of vermin. +Their faces were thin, pinched, and precocious. Many of them had been +locked out in the morning when their mothers went to their hawking, +washing, and other occupations, and might be locked out till midnight, or +later, as we found on the following night. There they sat, letting the +slow, vile stream in the gutter run over their feet, and there they were +sitting three hours later. They were from three to ten years old. It is +all the same if the rain or snow is falling, except that they leave the +gutters to huddle together in the foul shelter of the stair-foot. Some of +these will die, many will be educated into the hardened criminality of the +often-imprisoned street boy, many will slide naturally into a life of +shame, and a fortunate few will be sentenced to reformatories, from whence +they come out decent members of society at the rate of 70 per cent. "God +help them!" exclaimed a mother, so drunk that her own babe seemed in peril +in her arms. Ay, God help them! But our Father which is in heaven charges +the responsibility of their destiny on the respectable men and women of +Edinburgh. + +We entered the first room by descending two steps. It seemed to be an old +coal-cellar, with an earthen floor, shining in many places from damp, and +from a greenish ooze which drained through the wall from a noxious +collection of garbage outside, upon which a small window could have looked +had it not been filled up with brown paper and rags. There was no grate, +but a small fire smouldered on the floor, surrounded by heaps of ashes. +The roof was unceiled, the walls were rough and broken, the only light +came in from the open door, which let in unwholesome smells and sounds. No +cow or horse could thrive in such a hole. It was abominable. It measured +eleven feet by six feet, and the rent was 10d. per week, paid in advance. +It was nearly dark at noon, even with the door open; but as my eyes became +accustomed to the dimness, I saw that the plenishings consisted of an old +bed, a barrel with a flagstone on the top of it for a table, a +three-legged stool, and an iron pot. A very ragged girl, sorely afflicted +with ophthalmia, stood among the ashes doing nothing. She had never been +inside a school or church. She did not know how to do anything, but "did +for her father and brother." On a heap of straw, partly covered with +sacking, which was the bed in which father, son, and daughter slept, the +brother, ill with rheumatism and sore legs, was lying moaning from under a +heap of filthy rags. He had been a baker "over in the New Town," but +seemed not very likely to recover. It looked as if the sick man had crept +into his dark, damp lair, just to die of hopelessness. The father was past +work, but "sometimes got an odd job to do." The sick man had supported the +three. It was hard to be godly, impossible to be cleanly, impossible to be +healthy in such circumstances. + +The next room was entered by a low, dark, impeded passage about twelve +feet long, too filthy to be traversed without a light. At the extremity of +this was a dark winding stair which led up to four superincumbent storeys +of crowded subdivided rooms; and beyond this, to the right, a pitch-dark +passage with a "room" on either side. It was not possible to believe that +the most grinding greed could extort money from human beings for the +tenancy of such dens as those to which this passage led. They were lairs +into which a starving dog might creep to die, but nothing more. Opening a +dilapidated door, we found ourselves in a recess nearly 6 feet high, and 9 +feet in length by 5 in breadth. It was not absolutely dark, yet matches +aided our investigations even at noon-day. There was an earthen floor +full of holes, in some of which water had collected. The walls were black +and rotten, and alive with wood-lice. There was no grate. The rent paid +for this evil den, which was only ventilated by the chimney, is 1s. per +week, or L2, 12s. annually! The occupier was a mason's labourer, with a +wife and three children. He had come to Edinburgh in search of work, and +could not afford a "higher rent." The wife said that her husband took the +"wee drap." So would the President of the Temperance League himself if he +were hidden away in such a hole. The contents of this lair on our first +visit were a great heap of ashes and other refuse in one corner, some damp +musty straw in another, a broken box in the third, with a battered tin +pannikin upon it, and nothing else of any kind, saving two small children, +nearly nude, covered with running sores, and pitiable from some eye +disease. Their hair was not long, but felted into wisps, and alive with +vermin. When we went in they were sitting among the ashes of an extinct +fire, and blinked at the light from our matches. Here a neighbour said +they sat all day, unless their mother was merciful enough to turn them +into the gutter. We were there at eleven the following night, and found +the mother, a decent, tidy body, at "_hame_." There was a small fire then, +but no other light. She complained of little besides the darkness of the +house, and said, in a tone of dull discontent, she supposed it was "as +good as such as they could expect in Edinburgh." The two children we had +seen before were crouching near the embers, blinking at a light we +carried, and on the musty straw in the corner a third, about ten years +old, was doubled up. This child had not a particle of clothing, but was +partially covered with a rag of carpet. She was ill of scrofula, and the +straw she lay on seemed to be considered a luxury. Three adults (including +a respectable-looking grandmother) and three children slept on that +unwholesome floor, in a room, be it remembered, 9 by 5, and under 6 feet +high. We allow each convict 500 cubic feet of air in his cell. "We +consider him as one to be washed, clothed, covered, ventilated; secularly, +technically, and religiously taught, regularly exercised, and profitably +employed. We do not fling him into a dark hole, even when he misbehaves +himself, and we do not leave him there for years to fester in +filth."--_Daily Telegraph_, April 3, 1868. This reads like a bitter satire +on what we do to such families as these. On the other side of the dark +passage there was a room somewhat larger, for which _a rent of 1s. 6d. +per week was obtained_. This had no window or outer wall, and its sole +ventilation was by means of a hole in the door. + +These two lairs were the worst specimens of basement-storey rooms in that +close, but the rest were not much better, and their occupiers (all Scotch) +were equally poor. Medical men, with that noble spirit of philanthropy +which adorns the profession in Edinburgh, know these dens, and the city +and parochial missionaries, wearied and discouraged, still speak to the +dwellers in them of One who is mighty to save. But they have long cried to +the rich, to the men and women of leisure, to the Churches, "Come over and +help us." They ask people to throw aside their theories, to cease +wrangling over the cause, and try a rational cure; to give the poor not +what the rich and benevolent _like_, but what the poor _know they +need_--and that is, houses to dwell in, not dens to rot and perish in, +morally and physically. Blissful ignorance of the abyss of preventible +misery which exists in Edinburgh is impossible now. There are many divers +at work, and not one returns to the surface without bringing some +cumulative proof of the wreck and ruin below. No person, stranger or +citizen, who believes the facts can shirk an individual responsibility +concerning them. If sanitary reforms and city improvement schemes come too +late to save a lapsed generation of adults, kindly contact with the rich, +discriminating charity, houses in which cleanliness and decency are +possible, may redeem the children. It was with a little hope for them, at +least, that we turned from the close that day; a _little_ hope, I say, for +the dawn of the day which is to save them has not yet appeared. After the +many diseased dismal infants crouching in their dark dens on the sunny +day, the children of the gutters seemed almost happy, for they could see +above the lofty houses a blue strip of sky, beyond which, they might have +heard, dwells their Father. But hideous blasphemies all around came forth +from infant lips, and of that stinted, joyless, loveless, misused +childhood, if left to itself, an impure, unholy manhood and womanhood can +be the only end. Did the Master declare of these, and the legion of these, +"of such is the kingdom of heaven?" What then? + +Leaving these basement dens we entered another close, whose lofty houses, +with overhanging wooden fronts, give a certain amount of picturesqueness, +while they exclude light to such a degree that it is never much more than +twilight below, even on a sunny day. It is said that these projecting +fronts were built of wood from Boroughmuir, presented by a devout King +wherewith to provide oratories for the inhabitants of this close--so that +every one of them might be in circumstances to obey the command, "But +thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut +thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret." If the tradition be +true, it renders the use to which these oratories are now applied, and the +condition of the occupants of these dwellings, more sad and revolting by +contrast. Though the light in the close was little better than twilight, +several women were standing outside the houses mending and patching. They +said they could not see to do a stitch indoors. There were many children +sitting in the gutters, very dirty, ragged, and sore-eyed. These, the +women said, were the children of parents too poor to provide them with +clothes fit to go into the street. Out of sixty-two children of families +visited in this close, twenty only are reported as attending school. This +statement, probably, is above the real number, as among the thirty-two +families visited by myself, there was only one child reported as attending +school. So these children, who don't go to school, and are too ragged to +be sent to disport themselves in the street, spend their time between +their crowded dens upstairs and the narrow, filthy close--for filthy it +was, even at midday, although it was paved, and the scavengers had not +finished their work more than five hours before. These children have never +known cleanliness or decency. The happiness which comes from chasing +butterflies, rooting up pig-nuts, and making daisy wreaths, has never come +their way; or even the less Arcadian jollities of trundling hoops, playing +at marbles, and making dirt-pies, in which city children delight +themselves elsewhere. But these are "cribbed, cabined, and confined" by +the high black walls, and, as a mother said, "they are learning the +devil's lessons well." It is no exaggeration to add that many of them are +as absolutely ignorant of _love_ as they are of cleanliness, decency, and +happiness. Locked out into the cold or wet, scantily clad, meanly fed, +kicked about in the morning, kicked about at night, cursed instead of +kissed, utterly neglected in body and soul, they grow up attaching no +meaning whatever to the words _love_ and _home_. The wynds and closes are +swarming with them, the ragged and industrial schools, when they get hold +of them, are fain to withdraw them by night as well as by day from what in +mockery are called their homes, if they are to do anything with them. As +long as these are suffered to be born and reared in _dens_, so long must +we build prisons, reformatories, and Magdalene asylums to teach them, at +enormous cost, the decencies they have never known. In going through this +close, and several of the poorer districts, I have become aware that a +very large number of the parents of these forlorn infants are literally +and consciously "_lapsed_." By their willing and frequently regretful +admission they were "well-doing before they came to Edinburgh," or they +were once better off in Edinburgh, and "have come down in the world;" they +were Church members, and had the friendly recognition of ministers and +elders; they "paid their way," etc. etc. From one and all of these they +have "lapsed," some by drink, others by misfortune; and this was the case +with a large proportion of the inhabitants of this "land," in whose deep +wretchedness and degradation they are wallowing, and on whose threshold +the reader is being detained. But be it solemnly remembered, the children +who "are learning the devil's lessons" in the gutter _start not from the +platform of well-doing_ from which many of the parents fell, _but from the +platform of vice, intemperance, godlessness, recklessness, and filth to +which the parents have fallen_. + +Of such as these, one who claims a hearing for their woes and their +helplessness (Dr. Guthrie), writes--"I know the lapsed and wretched +classes well. I believe if I was as poor as they I should be as deceitful. +Circumstances make people what they are much more than many suppose. There +is not a wretched child in this town but if my children had been born and +bred up in its unhappy circumstances they might have been as bad." + +The smell of this close was intolerable. How can it be otherwise when all +the solid and liquid refuse which has been accumulating in the densely +packed habitations during the day, lies in the narrow close from ten at +night, in such quantities that the scavengers not unfrequently remove +nearly a ton of it at seven in the morning, and the ground and the +foundations of the houses are saturated with the liquid refuse and +drainage?[2] + +I only give a sketch of the general conformation and circumstances of the +lands in this close, premising that the description--often very much +darkened in tint, however--applies to a majority of the Old Town abodes +which, in Edinburgh, are considered good property, and fit for the stowage +of human beings, in Murdoch's Close, Hume's Close, Skinner's Close, +Hyndford's Close, South Foulis' Close, Cant's Close, Blackfriars Wynd, +Todrick's Wynd, Plainstone Close, Campbell's Close, Brown's Close, etc., +to which citizens who take an interest in this painful subject can add +various other closes on both sides of the High Street and Canongate, many +stairs in the Cowgate, and various entries and closes in the Grassmarket +and West Port. It is supposed that not fewer than 40,000 people live in +habitations not superior to, and often much inferior to, the lands +hereafter described. + +The entrance to the first "land" visited was by a very long, narrow, +winding stair, with steps so worn as to be unsafe. The stair was as dark +by day as by night until near the top, and there was nothing to assist an +unsteady walker in his ascent or descent. The wall was broken, and, as we +found on striking a light, the cracks swarmed with bugs and other vermin, +as, indeed, does every fissure and cranny of the dilapidated tenements +above. We had not gone far before the stench which assailed us was worse +than that from the worst-kept pigstye, and we found the state of the stair +too disgusting for description. It is disgraceful, degrading, shameful; +and who is to blame? A stranger at once supposes that it is due partly to +the filthy habits of the people, and also to the crime of the landlords in +not lighting the stairs. This last is a criminal act as regards +cleanliness, morals, and safety, and its continuance ought not to be +permitted for another month. The regulation concerning the cleaning of +stairs cannot be carried out in the dark, even if the people had brooms, +which most of them have not, and if they had a "spigot" in the close +instead of having to haul every drop of water from a public well at some +distance. There is an infinite injustice and degradation in such a mode of +access and egress for frail old age, and infancy scarcely less frail, for +females heavily laden with water or refuse-buckets, for young girls, and +for men savagely or boisterously drunk, in many cases for a population +over 200. + +On each landing there was a passage branching into several smaller ones, +very much like the galleries in a coal-pit, burrowing in and out among +endlessly subdivided rooms, measuring from 18 feet by 10 feet to 9 feet by +5 feet, separated by skeleton partitions filled up with plaster, through +which any man can put his foot. In this case the long passage was +_outside_ the congeries of habitations, and was lighted on two floors by +the windows of the recesses before alluded to as having been the oratories +of past generations. They had served the greed of late proprietors, for a +great number of the rooms partitioned off from the passage were dimly +lighted by windows looking upon it. Ventilated they could not be, for the +smell in this passage was poisonous. Nothing shows more forcibly the +lapsing of houses, as well as of human beings, than the fact that these +recesses, once prized as places for prayer, are now highly valued for +another purpose, being receptacles during the day for multitudes of +battered pails, containing the ashes and refuse hourly accumulating in the +rooms. Those persons consider themselves well off who have any such public +recesses or corners which can be used for this purpose. In general, in +these tenements, the inhabitants are compelled to keep the pail and +"backet," containing the unwholesome accumulations of the day, under the +bed, if there be one, and, failing that, in any corner, from seven in the +morning till ten at night. In large young families, and in sickness and +old age, the result may be imagined, when these accumulations of refuse of +all descriptions are shut up in rooms without ventilation, along with the +steam of half-washed clothes, in air contaminated by the respiration of +several persons. In this land the average size of the rooms is 12 feet by +7 feet. If, on the one hand, drink brings people into these abodes, on the +other, the foul, vile, depressing air, joined to the want of light and +water, drives them in thousands to the dram-shop. There was scarcely a +woman whose face did not testify, by its depression, yellowness, and +emaciation, to the air she is compelled to breathe by day and night. +Besides that the absence of temporary receptacles for refuse is utterly +disgusting and injurious to health, it inflicts sore toil on the women, +who are more than sufficiently burdened with drawing water from the public +wells. It is not a small thing for the mother of a family, or a frail old +wife, to come down the dark filthy stair late at night with the +"ashbacket," even if there be a window half-way down from which she may +discharge the contents on the pavement below. + +All along the passages there were thin partitions stuffed with rags, where +the plaster had fallen out, or had been kicked through in some drunken +frenzy--doors so broken all round that privacy even from the gaze of +passing strangers is impossible--a roof, in part, nothing better than old +boards, strengthened with pieces of iron and tin, which, like everything +else here, had "seen better days"--floors rotten--so rotten as to require +big stones to fill up holes larger than a man's head--windows with hardly +any glass left in them--wind and rain coming in in many places--the whole +pile apparently little more than just holding together by sheer force of +habit, utterly unfit for human habitation _as it is_--a disgrace which +public opinion ought to be strong enough to condemn. But it is one of a +legion of similar disgraces; it is a lucrative sin, a paying shame; in +politer language, it is "a good investment!" Ay, a good investment! For +these cabins, which, by a pernicious fiction, are called "houses," are +rack-rented at from L2, 10s. to L5 each, and pay the _fortunate_ +proprietors from 40 to 60 per cent. Here are "vested interests" with a +vengeance! + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +This rickety "land" is not by any means in one of the worst closes in +Edinburgh. It is not a haunt of the criminal classes. Vice and virtue live +side by side, though the virtuous are in a miserable minority, and their +children are in grievous peril of vice. I was given to understand, by +those well acquainted with the city, that it was a good representative +specimen of an average "land" in a High Street close. On that and another +occasion we visited thirty-two families, going by room-row. I propose to +give the circumstances of a few families, taken after this fashion. All +the rooms were in themselves wretched, few more than half-lighted, +scarcely any capable of ventilation, some on the second-floor requiring +candles at mid-day, floors and partitions in a shameful condition, the +former in many instances containing holes as big as a man's head, stuffed +with stones; the latter very thin and dilapidated, mended with rags, bits +of canvas, tin, and paper. The doors were usually made of odds and ends of +old boards, so rudely put together that in some rooms the people had +nailed canvas over them to prevent strangers from looking in. The windows +were nearly all bad, and patched with brown paper; no gas or water. The +landlord had never repaired anything within the memory of the "oldest +inhabitant." Among all the people visited the complaints were the +same--rapacious landlords charging from L2, 10s. to L5; no repairs +executed; borrowed light, involving an addition to the rent in the shape +of 1s. per week for candles; want of privacy; distance of water supply; +dark stairs; increasing subdivision of rooms, involving, in some cases, +the intense hardship of a right of way through the outer room. It is due +to all these people to say, that while they readily answered all our +questions, they never begged of us, or even hinted that charity would be +acceptable. It is due to some of them also to say, that their attempts to +keep their wretched dwellings clean were most praiseworthy. + +First room, 11 feet by 5 feet. A box-bed took up a third of it. No grate; +fire burning on a stone. The furniture consisted of the bed, a table with +three legs, and a "creepie." The room had direct light from a small +patched window, which was not made to open. The walls were broken, and +almost to pieces. There was a hole in the floor filled up with a large +stone. The occupier, a mason's labourer, was out seeking work, and his +wife was at the well. These two adults and five children between three and +fourteen years old slept on the floor, the eldest child said. "But don't +your father and mother sleep on the bed?" we asked. "No, they can't for +the bugs; we just lies on the floor, all of a heap." "In your clothes?" +"No; we takes them off." "Do you put anything on?" "No; we's just naked." +Truly, they had nothing to put on if they did succeed in getting out of +the wonderful aggregation of rags which hung on to them. For there were no +blankets, or any covering but an old piece of carpet. The rent was L3, +10s. a year. The girl who made this frank revelation was extremely pretty +and intelligent. Her young brother and sisters were beautiful, but +absolutely filthy; their arms and legs were covered with sores, and their +matted hair alive with vermin. The father was the only one of the family +who could read. The girl said that her father's leg had gone through the +floor up to the knee, and then they put the stone in the hole. From this +account it appears that, after deducting the space occupied by the bed, +seven individuals huddle together all of a heap in an area 6 feet by 5 +feet. The room was damp and draughty. + +The next room was 18 feet by 10 feet; shamefully out of repair, the wooden +partition falling to pieces. Some of the holes in it were carefully +patched with paper, but the neighbours constantly tear this off to look +in. One of the so-called panels of the door had been kicked in by a +drunken man; the landlord would not repair it, so the occupant had nailed +a piece of canvas over it. The window-glass was mostly gone, and though +the window had originally been made to open, the sash was too rotten to be +touched. The floor was in holes in several places. The rain came in along +one wall. The rent is L4. The family consisted of an elderly father and +mother, and two sons, plumbers. The father and eldest son had been out of +work for some time, and the youngest was only getting better from a fever. +They were very reticent about their circumstances, but we gathered that +two daughters in service were supporting them. Both father and mother were +rheumatic from the damp of the house, they said. There were two beds, but +they "can't sleep on either,--alive with bugs from the walls," so take +refuge on the floor. The woman pulled aside a patch of canvas, and showed +the wall swarming with these pests. They had taken every means of +destroying them, but in vain. The room was scrupulously clean. The next +measured 11 feet by 5, and 6 feet at the highest part. A single pane of +glass in a corner under the roof let in as much light as made objects +discernible. The plenishings consisted of a filthy straw bed, a bit of +carpet, and an iron pot. The floor was almost covered with cinders, and +mended in three places with stones. The room was loathsome, the smell +overpowering, the look of abject and uncared-for misery sickening. The +occupants were a widow, a cinder-picker, and her two children, very poor. +The children were "learning the devil's lessons" in the close below. A +neighbour told us that the mother often locks them into the room from five +o'clock in the morning till ten or eleven at night. The rent is L2, 12s. + +The next room was a house of ill-fame, with seven occupants, very +disorderly, and much complained of by the neighbours on each side, who +were separated from it only by a wretched partition. + +The next room was almost dark; 11 feet by 5 feet; rent, 1s. per week. Its +sole occupant was a frightful-looking hag, apparently more than seventy +years old, a mass of rags and filth, with an uncovered hoary head, whose +long locks were tangled with neglect and dirt. She was sleeping off the +effects of a drunken debauch on some old straw, but woke up sufficiently +to mutter a curse, and glower upon us a moment with her bloodshot eyes. +She had received the parish allowance the day before, and this was the +result--a whisky-bottle, without a cork, but not quite empty, was lying +beside her. There was no other sign of human habitation, and in the +wretched object lying on the straw we could hardly recognise humanity. + +Our next visit was of a different kind. Reaching the topmost floor, we +came upon a passage, very dilapidated, but lighted by a large projecting +window. A very respectable artisan was lime-washing the passage, the roof, +and the top of the stair. He said it was the best he could do, and he did +it once a fortnight. He had two rooms, only one of which had direct light. +They were like all the rest, in utter disrepair. He leant against the +outer partition, which swerved considerably from the perpendicular as he +did so, and said, "The weight of two men would bring it down." He came to +a situation in Edinburgh, has good wages, and could meet with nothing +better than this at the term. The rent is L9 a year. He gave a revolting +account of the immorality of the stair. He had three young children, he +said; if he couldn't get into a decent neighbourhood he'd rather see them +in their graves than grow up there. "What can I hope for my bairns," he +added, "when they can't get a breath of fresh air without seeing such as +yon?" Looking out, we saw in a window, not a pistol-shot off, three +debased women, sitting in the broad daylight, absolutely nude, as far as +we could see of them. The worthy citizens who were with me blushed for the +city called so fair, in which an honest artisan, with money in his pocket, +was compelled to shelter his family where all sights and sounds were +polluting, feeling, as he did, the abhorrent shame. The top of the stair +was much broken, and destitute of any protection. A fall would have been +into about forty feet of darkness. On our alluding to this as a great +peril for the young children, the man said, with a bitter smile, "Bairns +reared in such places are like lambs born among precipices--they early +learn to take care of themselves." This is true, or the juvenile +population of these closes would be decimated. Of the sad sights we saw +that morning, that was about the saddest--the honest man and his shame, +and the helplessness of his circumstances. It was enough to make even +"polite indifference" put forth some redeeming effort. + +First room on fifth floor, 12 by 14 feet. Rent L2, 10s. Very cold; roof +out of repair, and admitting rain; the partitions much broken. The +occupiers were a very decent-looking man, seventy-six years old, by trade +a shoemaker, his wife, aged seventy-three, and a dumb grandson, who was +mending a shoe on the stool on which his grandfather "had sat for +sixty-two years." They had parish relief. The woman had been in bed twelve +months with paralysis, and suffered much from being removed. The dirt and +vermin were perfectly awful. She was a miserable object; apparently she +had no bed-gown, and her skeleton chest and ribs, which were exposed to +view, might have served as a model for death. Both she and her husband had +the speech and air of having seen better days. They had lived in this +attic for twenty years, and had had typhus fever twice during the last +ten. The rent had been raised L1 during the same period. They had five +children, scattered in Australia and America, but letters addressed to +them were returned with the notice "Not found." They seemed very poor, but +made no complaint of anything but the wretched condition of the room, the +cold and damp, the want of privacy, and the distance from which the old +man had to bring the water up the long dark stair. The room was clean, +with the exception of the bed, but the cracks in the partitions there, as +everywhere else, were "alive with bugs." The old man _said_ he was a +church-member, and paid 2s. 6d. a year for a seat at a U.P. church. This +was their own account of themselves, and the general appearance of things +bore it out. Such are the cases in which much may be done, by systematic +visitation, in the way of arresting a downward course. These people are +now in the Poor-house, the dram-shop having proved too much for the old +man. + +Next room, 8 feet by 9 feet. A most wretched place, only fit to be pulled +down; borrowed light. A joiner, in very bad health, and consequently out +of work for two years, with his wife and four children, and a daughter by +a former marriage, with an illegitimate child, were the occupants. The +wife and grown-up daughter earn 7s. 6d. per week by washing. The rent is +L2 a year. A most miserable family, utterly gone to wreck. + +Next room.--A blind labourer, very frail, with a wife, who supports the +family and four children. After an illness, were ordered into the +Poor-house, then out again, and were quite broken up by it. This room was +wretched in every respect--9 feet by 10 feet, very low, and rented at L2. +In the next room there was a very sad case--a compositor, with a wife and +two children, living in a room, requiring a candle at mid-day, 12 feet by +8 feet; roof mended with tin, letting in the rain; floor broken and mended +with stones, so rotten that a walking-stick went through it in two places. +The man's joints were stiff with rheumatism, caught in the damp cold of +the room. Work had slackened, and after having had a good room in +Carrubbers Close, they had come here. The man had had no work for a long +time, and they had pledged everything, till they had only "the clothes +they stood in." They had had good furniture, but it "was all gone to keep +life in them." They spoke of their poverty very reluctantly, and very +warmly of the kindness of the missionary. Both man and wife were steady. +Her earnings supported them; but she was expecting her confinement +shortly. + +The next room was 14 feet by 8 feet, and the remains of a cornice held on +to the outer wall. The side walls were skeleton partitions, dilapidated +and swarming with bugs. There were three doors. The occupant was a +fish-hawker, an Irishwoman--cheery and self-asserting, voluble as to +herself and her neighbours. Had she been of smaller size and milder tongue +the hardship of which she complained would have had more pathos about it; +but even as it is, a more infamous injustice could scarcely be perpetrated +by the proprietors of these ruinous fabrics: her room had been subdivided +since she came; she continued to pay the old rent--L4. The occupants of +the inner room were a man and woman, with two lodgers, apparently of most +irregular habits, who came through her room with a passkey, drunk and +sober, at all hours of day and night. This is one of eleven instances of +passage-rooms that I have seen in Edinburgh. In the Cowgate this infamous +system flourishes, and occasionally to such an extent that the outer room +is the only mode of ingress and egress for three or four others. The +insult and hardship this plan entails upon the virtuous, and the +facilities for immorality that it affords to the vicious cannot be recited +here. + +Outside this woman's room there was a perfect labyrinth of passages, all +dark, but on opening a door we entered a room 12 feet square, with direct +light, but with rotten partitions, like all the rest, and so pervious to +sound that we heard every word of a narrative of our visit which the +"decent widder" before mentioned was giving to an incomer. This room was +miserable. Ashes, the accumulation of days, heaped the floor round the +fire. There was no other furniture than a bedstead with a straw mattress +upon it, a table, and a stool; but it was the occupants, rather than the +apparent poverty, who claimed our attention. A girl about eighteen, very +poorly dressed, was sitting on the stool; two others, older and very much +undressed, were sitting on the floor, and the three were eating, in most +swinish fashion, out of a large black pot containing fish. I have shared a +similar meal, in a similar primitive fashion, in an Indian wigwam in the +Hudson's Bay Territory, but there the women who worshipped the Great +Spirit were modest in their dress and manner, and looked _human_, which +these "Christian" young women did not. An infant of about a month old, +perfect in its beauty, and smiling in its sleep, "as though heaven lay +about it," was on the bed, not dressed, but partly covered with a rug. +What better could be desired for it than that the angels might take it +speedily away from that shameful birth-chamber to behold its Father's face +in heaven? Easier by far to trust it in death to His mercy, than in life +to the zeal of the Christianity of Edinburgh. Death for these is better +than life; and, in many cases, drugs and neglect soon bring it about. +"Where are you from?" one of my philanthropic companions asked of the girl +of eighteen, the mother. "Dundee; mother and I came here five weeks ago. I +was a mill-worker." "Will the father of your child marry you?" "No, sir." +"Have you got work here?" "No, sir; I can't get any." "What are you going +to do, then?" "I suppose I must do as the others." She gave this answer +without shame, and without effrontery. An upbringing in a Dundee "pend" +had not acquainted her with shame as an attendant upon sin. Alas for the +hundreds of girl-children growing up among the debasing circumstances of +the crowded "lands" of our wynds and closes, without even the instincts of +virtue! + +The next room, though miserable in itself, was clean and well furnished, +with pictures hanging upon the partitions. A mother and daughter, both +widows, but earning a good living by needlework, were the occupants. They +complained bitterly of the gross viciousness of the stair, and of the +"awful riot" kept up all night by those newcomers. They told us that the +wretched old hag who had come from Dundee had five female lodgers, with +only two gowns among them all, and that they were of the poorest and most +degraded class. These respectable widows, both elderly women, had lived in +that room for seven years, and in the main had had quiet neighbours. They +now found themselves in this close proximity to a den of vice, unable to +exclude the sounds which came through the thin partition, and too +terrified at night by the drinking and uproar to be able to sleep. The +term was lately passed, so they were compelled to bear it. + +A few sentences more will take us through the remaining rooms on the two +floors we are investigating. There follow a widow, who binds shoes, with +two children, sleeping in a large bed in a room 11 feet by 9 feet, with a +small window, letting in air too impure to breathe; rent, L2, 12s. A +widow, with a brother seventy-two years old, poor, but clean, chiefly +dependent on a daughter in service. A mason's labourer, who once farmed +six acres of land, now earns 12s. per week; wife with bad eyes, and health +too delicate for work, having fretted herself into decline for two +children who had died of the cholera; room, 12 feet by 8 feet, rented at +1s. 2d. per week. Three adults and six children in a room 12 feet by 10 +feet, without direct light. Drunken labourer, earning 15s. per week--two +sons in prison; two daughters living with him, with three illegitimate +children; room, 14 feet by 15 feet; rent, L3, 18s. a year. Pauper widow, +with one child and two unregistered lodgers. Married labourer, with two +children, earning 15s. per week; three lodgers (prostitutes) in the same +room, 14 feet by 12 feet; rent, L3, 18s.; borrowed light; no furniture; +all drunken together. Then follow five families, all wretched; and we have +completed our room-to-room visitation of two floors in an average land in +an average close in the High Street. + +As seen thus, in broad daylight, except for the filth, dilapidation, +vermin, darkness, and poverty, combined with the suggestions of immoral +conduct on the part of most of the people, there was nothing peculiarly +startling to any one at all acquainted with the Old Town of Edinburgh. I +have taken this particular close, for the especial reason that what is +said of it and its inhabitants applies to dwellings and circumstances in +which possibly 40,000 people pass their days. I have given the impression +made by it upon a stranger, in preference to depicting entries in a part +of the town with which I am well acquainted, and which, in many of their +aspects, are far worse. There are cellar-dwellings, damp and dark, old +byres with open drains still running through them, let for human beings; +garrets, damp and draughty, in which a man can scarcely stand upright; and +cabins, of which stairs, roofs, and walls are mainly of wood. There are +rooms as small as any I have mentioned, occupied by one, two, and three +families, only reached by passage-rooms as small and crowded as +themselves; and in these dens the whole round of human life goes +on--agonies of birth and death, miseries of sickness and sorrow, marriage +jollifications, funeral revels, the cold remains of mortality lying on the +same straw with the living; the miserable meal on the table, the +unshrouded corpse on the floor. Are such woes as these, such absolute +savage degradation, the inevitable deposit of the highest Christian +civilisation? Is there, indeed, no balm in Gilead--is there no physician +there? Is it the curse of God's indignation, or the curse of man's +selfishness, avarice, and neglect, under which those thousands are lying? +Is this the "good ground" on which the gospel seed is to spring up and +bear fruit one hundredfold? Are the rich and godly to send missionaries +and Bible-women among these masses, and save their own souls by giving the +necessary funds? Shall they not rather go down themselves among the lost, +as Christ went, and learn their needs, and find from themselves that +foremost among these are decent dwellings in which it might be possible to +live and die otherwise than as swine. We might then hear less of money +lying at two per cent. in the banks, or lost in insolvent railroads, and +more of 8, 10, and 12 per cent. as a certain return. Talk of the risk of +house property! Is it greater than the risks people have contentedly run +for years in railroads, mines, and cotton? Possibly every L100 spent on +improving the dwellings of the poor might do something towards +accumulating a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief +approacheth, or moth corrupteth. + +The walls of the Old Town houses are generally strong. Such a "land" as +that which I have described, gutted from cellar to roof, and supplied with +water, gas, and a temporary receptacle for rubbish, would make a good +substantial house at a comparatively small cost, with a certain return of +from 8 to 10 per cent. The removal of the subdividing partitions, new +floors, doors, and windows would be a necessity. The good result of such +an undertaking in every close and wynd would not be only the placing of +sixteen or eighteen families in a position in which, if they were so +minded, they could be moral and religious, but the insertion of a _wedge_ +into this hardened stratum of viciousness and poverty. The bad could not +be so bad in close proximity to the virtuous. The filthy would aspire to +be something better. The landlords, the hardest class of all to deal with, +would be compelled, by competition and opinion, to amend their property +and their ways. Decent houses in St. Bernard's or St. Leonard's have no +more influence over the manners and morals of Hume's Close or Todrick's +Wynd than decent houses in Moray Place or Chester Street; but decent lands +put down in Cant's Close or Skinner's Close, with rooms rented from L2, +10s. to L4, would do a better work of reformation around them than all the +agencies which are at work. + +It is only necessary to refer to the complete renovation of Warden's +Close, Grassmarket, by Dr. Foulis, as a proof of what is to be done by +energetic individual action. The restored fabric, as arranged for _human +beings_, pays 14 per cent. Of course, the still greater overcrowding of +other dens during the renovation of even one "land" requires to be +carefully provided against. + +It has been frequently stated that a third of the inhabitants of Edinburgh +are not in connexion with any Christian Church. In the thirty-two families +visited in ---- Close, two women were the only persons who professed to +attend any place of worship. In another small close which we visited none +but a Catholic family professed to attend any church. Eight years ago, in +two populous stairs in another part of the town with which I was well +acquainted, there was a total of nine persons attending church out of an +adult population of forty. At the present time this number is reduced to +one woman, who, "when she goes anywhere, goes to Lady Yester's." Of the +thirty-two families before spoken of, most of the women and some of the +men had formerly been church-goers. Where is this "lapsing" to end? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +I have given the aspect of the houses and population of a particular +district by daylight, avoiding all sensational details. The "night side" +of the same is well known from description--the High Street filled with a +densely compacted, loitering, brawling, buying, selling, singing, cursing, +quarrelsome crowd--every fifth man and woman the worse for drink so early +as ten at night--a nocturnal market vigorously proceeds under +difficulties--men and women puff their wares with stentorian tones and +coarse wit--barrows with flaring lights, from which the poorest of the +poor are buying the unwholesome refuse of the shops, stale fish, and stale +vegetables--boys vending laces, nuts, whistles--women hawking tin and +crockery ware, all eager, pushing, poor. Add to these, the exhibitors of +penny-shows and penny cheats, the singers of low and improper songs, the +vendors of popular melodies and penny narrations of crime, and an idea may +be formed of the noisy traffic of the High Street. As the night goes on, +the crowd becomes more drunk and criminal until the legal hour of closing +the spirit-shops, when hundreds of pallid, ragged wretches are vomited +forth upon the street to carry terrors into their dark, crowded homes. The +majority are half-mad, and almost wholly desperate. Men and women, savage +with drink, are biting, scratching, mauling each other; the air is laden +with blasphemies, brutal shouts from the strong; cries from the weak; +blows are dealt aimlessly; infants at midnight cry in the wet street for +mothers drunk in the gutters or police cells; young girls and boys are +locked out for the night by parents frantic with drink, viragos storm, +policemen here and there drag an offender out of the crowd amidst the +chaffing and coarse laughter of young girls bearing the outward marks of a +life of degradation; mothers with infants in their arms lie helpless in +the gutters, to be trundled off to the final ignominy of the police cell, +wretches scarcely clothed, whom the daylight knows not, slink stealthily +to some foul cellar lair,--and all this, and worse than this, from the +Tron down the Canongate, and along the Cowgate, and in the Grassmarket, +and in numbers of the lanes and alleys, broad and narrow, which border +upon them. The district we visited by day we visited also by night, to +find that at 11 P.M. the whole population of the lands previously +described was astir, mostly from evil, partly from the impossibility of +quiet; that small children were still out among the influences of the +closes and the street, and that there was no sign that the night had come, +except the darkness and the increased overcrowding of many of the rooms. +The dark, narrow passages were in several places almost impassable, owing +to the dead-drunk men who lay across them; the rooms were thronged and +stifling, and sick and well, drunk and sober, vicious and virtuous, were +all huddled together with only a pretence of separation. Whole families +were sitting in the dark, or cowering round fires which only rendered the +darkness visible. "A horror of great darkness" rested on all the houses. +The noise was hideous. Decent people might well be afraid of going to bed. +Half the inmates were under the influence of drink. Drunkards tumbled up +the long dark stairs, and reeled down the dark passages, with shouts and +imprecations, destitute even of the instinct which teaches a wild beast +the way to its own den. Sounds of brawling, fighting, and revelry came +from many of the rooms. Here a drunkard was kicking through the panels of +a neighbour's door; there two dead-drunk women lay on a heap of straw; +here a half-tipsy virago protested to us, with the air of a tragedy +queen, that she "took in none but respectable lodgers;" there a man mad +with drink tore his wife's throat with his nails. One room presented a +scene of disgusting revelry and vice. In the next a feeble woman was +stilling the moans of a dying child. "And that day was the preparation." +It was the Edinburgh Saturday night, and over the din and discord of city +sins, and over the wail of city sorrows, came the sweet sound of St. +Giles's bells announcing that the Sabbath had begun. + +Of that Saturday night in Edinburgh the Rev. R. Maguire, rector of +Clerkenwell, who was one of our party, writes, in the _Church of England +Temperance Magazine_--"We can but say that all we saw that night has left +upon our mind the painful feeling, that of all the dark and desolate +places of the earth the Old Town is about the darkest and the most +desolate." He adds, in the same paper, after a description of some of the +dwellings in Hume's Close--"We can scarcely feel surprised to know that +the condition of these thousands is far past all hope." + +Clerkenwell itself, Whitechapel, and Lambeth can furnish enough of misery +and crime, but it is not believed that any city in Europe contains an area +of wretchedness so large and unbroken as Edinburgh. In other cities the +miserable dwellings and their inhabitants hide themselves out of sight in +obscure purlieus, scarcely known to the rich by name, much less by +observation. Here the very core of all is the High Street of the city, +with a royal palace at one end and a royal castle at the other, and +studded down the whole of its picturesque length with public buildings. +Here are the Courts of Law, the Parliament House, the City Chambers, the +Assembly Halls of the Established and Free Churches, the Cathedral, +numerous places of worship, some of which at least are, or were, +fashionable, newspaper offices, printing establishments, and one of the +most frequented shops in the city, the wholesale and retail establishment +of Duncan M'Laren and Son. Thus, instead of being hidden away, the +wretchedness and vice of the High Street and Canongate obtrude themselves +on all passers-by, from the representative of royalty who in semi-regal +state passes up and down the whole extent of this _Via Dolorosa_, several +times annually, to the summer swarm of tourists from all parts of the +world, who return to their own cities rejoicing that they are not as the +metropolis of Scotland. But it is not from such casual visitors that the +amelioration of the condition of the poor is to be expected--not on them +that the responsibility rests. It is on the gentlemen who cross the High +Street daily to lounge in the Parliament House, on the _literati_ who +frequent one of the finest libraries in Britain, on the antiquarians who +explore the wynds and closes in search of an ancient inscription or a +remnant of a cornice, on the hundreds, both of ladies and gentlemen, whose +avocations continually carry them to the various public offices in the +High Street, on all who see and all who hear. Can it be that the feelings +of all these are blunted by familiarity with sights which shock a +stranger; or that the upper classes in Edinburgh are steeped in an +unwholesome indifferentism; or that the Christianity of the city is waxing +feeble and old? Without admitting one or all of these defects, it is +difficult to account for the extreme complacency with which the majority +of the upper classes are acting out the creed, "Forget the painful, +suppress the disagreeable, banish the ugly;" content to add luxury to +luxury, and to throw away money on ill-considered alms, while the poor are +perishing from neglect. It is difficult to comprehend such intense apathy, +after all that has been written by the daily press, private individuals, +and lastly by the "Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor," to +show the thinly-crusted abyss over which people are disporting themselves. +It might have been supposed that when facts similar to those stated in +these Notes have been reiterated from various quarters, so that no adult +in Edinburgh can plead ignorance concerning the state of the poor, that +the appeal for visitors made by the Society aforesaid would have met a +tremendous and immediate response, and that the gentlemen of Edinburgh +would have come forward, as those of other and busier cities have done, to +offer willing aid. If there be another thing more mournful than the +poverty and immorality of the poor, it is the vicious selfishness of the +rich. It is observable in Edinburgh, as well as elsewhere, that the upper +classes indulge very freely in the expression of opinion on the "dirt, +vice, and improvidence of the poor," but the lapsed masses of the Old Town +have a "public opinion" also regarding the selfishness, heartlessness, and +indifference of the rich, and express it without much reticence of +phraseology. Indeed, it is doubtful whether there is a man or woman who +looks across the green ravine which separates the Old Town from the New, +who has not a very decided opinion, right or wrong, that the negative and +positive delinquencies of the best-instructed class have a great deal to +do with the lapsing of the masses in this city. Almost the first steps +have yet to be taken towards removing this baneful hostility of class, +and promoting a healthy feeling on each side. + +In "house-to-house visitation" in Edinburgh, I have observed with much +surprise that among 145 families visited 143 were _Scotch_. In almost the +whole of these the influence of a decent upbringing, and the restraints +which connexion with a church imposes, had been thrown away, and the +people, utterly debased and pauperized, had not a rag of Scottish pride +left. It appears from all that can be observed that the mere existence of +these unbroken masses of poverty, overcrowding, and vice, has a tendency +to _denationalize_ the people, and to produce a population which shall be +absolutely barren of those virtues which have been considered peculiarly +Scotch--a population, in fact, knowing nothing of truthfulness, modesty, +reverence for parents and old age, independence, Sabbath observance, and +thrift. These masses, which are sinking lower and lower, in spite of +existing agencies, have little to distinguish them from the "dangerous +classes" of London, Paris, or New York, except that they are more drunken +and dirty. Their mere existence, to say nothing of their increase, is +sapping the foundations of "Scottish nationality." + +Another thing which impresses a stranger is a peculiar habit of speech +common to nearly all these people, and is possibly nearly the only relic +of their more religious days. "God-forgotten" was the phrase they nearly +all used, an expression which gives occasion to the question, "Have +Christians, who are the representatives of God upon earth, misrepresented +Him to these people by their neglect?" A grudge against God, an idea as if +He were the author of evil and not good to them, seemed general. Many of +the phrases used showed a sort of reckless belief, which, under the +circumstances, was worse than unbelief. Coming down a long dark stair late +at night, from an overcrowded land, a frightful hag clutched my arm with +her skinny hand, and hissed into my ear, "_Is it God's elect you are +seeking here? It's the devil's elect you'll find_," laughing fiendishly at +her own wit. "So this is Blackfriars Wynd," remarked one of our party, as +we passed down the crowded alley. "_No, it's hell's mouth_," exclaimed a +forlorn woman, who was dragging a drunken man to his joyless home. "Do you +think the missionary would dare to mock me by telling me of God's love? +Could he have the face to do it _here_?" a poor woman exclaimed, whose +three fatherless children lay ill on some straw, which served for a bed +in a cellar, of which it and a kettle were the only "furniture." + +It is one thing to hear unpleasant facts stated by unwelcome speakers, or +to meet with them fossilized in statistical tables, but altogether another +to confront them in beings clothed in kindred flesh and blood, in men, +women, and children claiming a common Fatherhood, and asserting their +right to be heard. These our brethren, haggard, hopeless, hardened, +vicious, on whose faces sin has graved deeper lines than either sorrow or +poverty; this old age which is not venerable, this infancy which is not +loveable, these childish faces, or faces which should have been childish, +peering from amidst elvish locks, and telling of a precocious familiarity +with sin,--these glowering upon us from the tottering West Bow, with its +patched and dirty windows, from the still picturesque Lawnmarket, from the +many-storeyed houses of the High Street,--these are spectres not easily to +be laid to rest, and "polite society," which has become perfect in the +polite art of indifference, must encounter them, sooner or later, in one +way or another. + +Surely it is possible to raise these our brethren, who are living and +dying like brutes, to a platform on which the gospel of Him who came to +preach glad tidings to the poor would not be met by nearly insuperable +obstacles. Though more wretches have been pulled out of the mire by +mission churches than by any other agency, the masses are "lapsed," "gone +under," sunk on the whole to lower depths than the ministerial plummet can +sound, and the ministers, most of whom are hampered by the existing +necessities of large congregations, are not _directly_ responsible for a +condition of things which is a disgrace to Scottish Christianity. My own +experience leads me to believe that these lapsed masses must be raised out +of the "Slough of Despond" before they can hear or see; that these +miserable thousands must have at least as much light, air, and space as we +give our brutes, before a ministerial visit can be aught but a +mockery,--before they can rise to manhood and womanhood in Christ. The +ministers are not to be altogether blamed for failing to carry the tidings +of peace to those who are too deaf, from drink and demoralization, to hear +them. Condemn them if they fail to thunder into ears scarcely less dull, +that the blood of those who are going down alive into the pit will be +required of a church-membership which is bound to aim at no lesser measure +of devotion than His who laid down His life for the brethren. Let them +demand the lives of these godless ones from the respectable who enjoy the +Sabbath luxury of sermons; let them declare a crusade against the +Christlessness and apathy of those who sit at ease at communion-tables, +content to leave those to the outer darkness for whom that same body and +blood were broken and shed, and they will be guiltless. + +It was by a life of sacrifice and a death of shame that the redemption of +this world was wrought; and it is by a life of sacrifice alone--if loving +search after the lost, if personal sympathy with the wretched, if stooping +to raise and aid the poor are to be called sacrifice--that the Master's +steps can be followed and His work on the earth be completed. + +I. L. B. + + +EDINBURGH: T. CONSTABLE, + +PRINTER TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITY. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Report on the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Edinburgh, 1868, p. +19. + +[2] Report on the Condition of the Poorer Classes of Edinburgh, 1868, p. +49. + + + + +Now ready, Sixth Edition, in One Vol., Extra Foolscap 8vo, 7s. 6d. + +HORAE SUBSECIVAE. + +BY JOHN BROWN, M.D., F.R.S.E. + +FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, EDINBURGH. + + +CONTENTS. + + LETTER TO JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. + DR. CHALMERS. + DR. GEORGE WILSON. + HER LAST HALF-CROWN. + QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN. + OUR DOGS. + NOTES ON ART. + "OH, I'M WAT, WAT!" + EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. + [Greek: AGCHINOIA]--NEARNESS OF THE [Greek: NOTS]--PRESENCE + OF MIND--[Greek: EUSTOCHIA]: HAPPY GUESSING. + THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. + RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. + "WITH BRAINS, SIR!" + ARTHUR H. HALLAM. + +Of all the John Browns, commend as to Dr. John Brown, the physician, the +man of genius, the humorist, the student of men, women, and dogs. By means +of two beautiful volumes, he has given the public a share of his by-hours, +and more pleasant hours it would be difficult to find in any life. Dr. +Brown's master-piece is the story of a dog called 'Rab.' The tale moves +from the most tragic pathos to the most reckless humour, and could not +have been written but by a man of genius. Whether it moves to laughter or +tears, it is perfect in its way, and immortalizes its author. The contents +of these _Horae Subsecivae_ are very miscellaneous. From stories of dogs, +biographies of doctors and ministers, hints on medical education and +practice, we turn to criticisms on poetry and art. One of the volumes +contains the best account of Arthur Hallam, the hero of Mr. Tennyson's +_Elegiacs_, that is anywhere to be found. In the other, there is a very +curious and racy criticism on the poems of Henry Vaughan.--_Times._ + +There is a pleasant article on the Arthur Henry Hallam of '_In +Memoriam_.'... The story of "Rab and his Friends" is a veritable gem. It +is true, simple, pathetic, and touched with an antique grace, which, in +such vicinity, charms and surprises. If any pre-Raphaelite aspirant would +learn how Doric homeliness may be united with the utmost perfection and +symmetry of form, let him read this beautiful episode.... A book of much +wisdom and beauty, and we most heartily recommend it--its cause as well as +its execution.--_Fraser's Mag._ + + +ODDS AND ENDS. + +Now Ready, Vol. I., in Cloth, price 4s. 6d., containing Nos. 1-10: + + +1. Sketches of Highland Character.--SHEEP FARMERS AND DROVERS. + +2. Convicts. By a PRACTICAL HAND. + +3. Wayside Thoughts of an Asophophilosopher. By D'ARCY W. THOMPSON. No. 1. +RAINY WEATHER; or, the Philosophy of Sorrow. GOOSESKIN; or, the Philosophy +of Horror. TE DEUM LAUDAMUS; Or, the Philosophy of Joy. + +4. The Enterkin. By JOHN BROWN, M.D. + +5. Wayside Thoughts of an Asophophilosopher. By D'ARCY W. THOMPSON. No. 2. +ASSES--HISTORY--PLAGUES. + +6. Penitentiaries and Reformatories. + +7. Notes from Paris; or, Why are Frenchmen and Englishmen different? + +8. Essays by an Old Man. No. 1. IN MEMORIAM--VANITAS VANITATUM--FRIENDS. + +9. Wayside Thoughts of an Asophophilosopher. By D'ARCY W. THOMPSON. No. 3. +NOT GODLESS, BUT GODLY; A TRIANGULAR TREATISE ON EDUCATION. + +10. The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish Character. By J. A. +FROUDE, Author of the 'History of England.' + + +Now Ready, Vol. II., in Cloth, price 4s. 6d., containing Nos. 11-19: + +11. The Cattle Plague. By LYON PLAYFAIR, C.B., LL.D, F.R.S., ETC. + +12. Rough Nights' Quarters. By ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE ROUGHED IT. + +13. Letters on the Education of Young Children. By S. G. O. + +14. The Stormontfield Piscicultural Experiments. 1853-1866. By ROBERT +BUIST. + +15. A Tract for the Times. + +16. Spain in 1866. + +17. The Highland Shepherd. By the Author of 'The Two Queys.' + +18. The Doctrine of the Correlation of Forces: its Development and +Evidence. By the Rev. JAMES CRANBROOK, Edinburgh. + +19. 'Bibliomania.' + +20. A Tract on Twigs, and on the Best Way to Bend them. + +EDINBURGH: EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +One advertisement in the original text includes Greek characters. For this +text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Notes on Old Edinburgh, by Isabella L. Bird + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES ON OLD EDINBURGH *** + +***** This file should be named 36014.txt or 36014.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/1/36014/ + +Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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