(_For the Mirror_.)
Disposed as we are to give the Scotch full credit for superior domestic
economy, a practice which we had frequently an opportunity of observing,
some five or six years since in Edinburgh, astonished us, we confess, not
a little; and which, had we heard of, not beheld, we should rather have
been inclined to attribute to our thoughtless Hibernian neighbours.
Every English housemaid knows, if every housekeeper does not, that
shavings make a most valuable fuel; for lighting fires they are preferable
to those faggots, small bundles of which fetch in London, and large
provincial towns, what may be considered a high price, as they commonly
swell the weekly expenditure of every family. In Edinburgh, at the period
to which we allude, a great deal of building was going on, and it was
impossible to walk the streets without passing, (especially in the
immediate environs) new houses in various stages of completion; but
invariably we found, that the custom of the workmen was, to collect in
heaps the shavings from the carpenter's work, and burn with other rubbish,
these, which might have been sold for fuel very advantageously; nor was
the waste of this practice the only thing to be reprehended; it was
dangerous, since such bonfires were lighted before the houses in the open
streets, to the great peril of passengers, and at the risk of frightening
horses and other cattle, as the high winds prevalent in our northern
metropolis carried about in all directions the light, blazing shavings,
and sparks.