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