CHAPTER VI. MORE OF ST. MUNGO'S CITY. King William's Statue-The Cross-The Saltmarket-A WE E have not only seen the bizarre exterior of the Trongate bank, but we have paid a visit also to the interior, where we have had a cheque converted into strange notes of one pound in value, covered with elaborate steel engravings, and having some remote connection with a Linen Company. Then we pass the piazza of the Tontine Hotel, fronted by a ludicrous equestrian statue of Macaulay's pet, the third William, standing supreme over cabs and omnibuses. He deserves a better memorial, for he was a good friend to Glasgow, and when the citizens had assured him of their attachment to his person and crown, cemented the friendship by giving them a charter, and permitting them to worship God after their own fashion. Now we are at the Cross: the Gallowgate is before us, High Street to our left hand, and to our right the Saltmarket of Baillie Nicol Jarvie. When the Queen had passed down this street, in August 1849, she marked her lively appreciation of the creations of Sir Walter Scott, by asking Mr. Sheriff Alison to point out to her Baillie Nicol Jarvie's residence.* The street stretches from the Cross to the river, and in many of its buildings, with their lofty crow-stepped gables, still presents some traces of its former respectability, when it was the headquarters of the homes of civic dignitaries, and James Duke of York had his lodgings within its precincts. But the Saltmarket has now descended to the dregs, and is in rags and tatters; and the Baillie's father, the Deacon, would have many a groan at the dirt and drink that mark the locality. By the time that we have reached this spot, our senses of sight, and hearing, and smell will tell us that Glasgow, like London, has its East as well as its West End, and that the two are as wide as the poles asunder. The second city in the kingdom can rival the first in its slums as well as its palaces; and, notwithstanding sunshine and blue sky, and despite those picturesque peculiarities of Scottish architecture. that make the closes and wynds of Glasgow and Edinburgh look so well upon paper, they are as equally filthy to the outward and moral senses as are the slums of any other great city. The Saltmarket, the Gallowgate, the Cowcaddens, and the Goosedubs of eastern Glasgow are the very antipodes of the shining splendours *This part of the street was called 'The Old Coffee-House Land,' being used as a sort of exchange for the merchants before the erection of the Tontine. It had a projecting lantern-story, much used by the higher classes for witnessing the hangings at the Cross. In 1766-9 it was occupied as a book auction-room by Robert and Andrew Foulis, the celebrated printers. (Glasgow and its Clubs. By Dr. Strang, p. 6. Journey from Edinburgh. By Alex. Campbell, ii. 270.) For the Foulis works, see The Literary History of Glasgow, edited by W. J. Duncan for the Maitland Club, p. 49. of the squares, and crescents, and public buildings of the western part of the city. Few strangers would wish to penetrate into the inmost recesses of these filthy spots; and, unless they went there as apostles of charity and religion, the following account of the personal experience of the late Mr. Jellinger Symons might be sufficient to deter them from making a practical acquaintance with the penetralia of a Glasgow wynd. 6 The account is given in his report of the Commission for Inquiring into the Condition of the Hand-loom Weavers in the United Kingdom,' of whom a considerable number inhabit these eastern slums of Glasgow: The wynds of Glasgow comprise a fluctuating population of from fifteen to twenty thousand persons. This quarter consists of a labyrinth of lanes, out of which numberless entrances lead into small courts, each with a dunghill reeking in the centre. Revolting as was the outside of these places, I was little prepared for the filth and destitution within. In some of these lodging-rooms (visited at night) we found a whole lair of human beings littered along the floor-sometimes fifteen and twenty, some clothed and some naked—men, women, and children huddled promiscuously together. Their bed consisted of a lair of musty straw, intermixed with rags. There was generally no furniture in these places. The sole article of comfort was a fire. Thieving and prostitution constituted the main source of the revenue of this population. No pains seem to be taken to purge this Augæan pandemonium, this nucleus of crime, filth, and pestilence, existing in the centre of the second city of the empire. These wynds constitute the St. Giles of Glasgow, but I owe an apology to the metropolitan pandemonium for the comparison. A very extensive inspection of the lowest districts of other places, both here and on the continent, never presented anything half so bad, either in intensity of pestilence, physical and moral, or in extent proportioned to the population.' This was written twenty-two years ago. It is to be hoped that, in the interim, something may have been done for the amelioration of this frightful state of things, and that a faithful picture of the penetralia of these wynds would not now have to be painted in such strong and repulsive colours. But certainly there is much to be seen, even on the outside of these slums, that may make us fear to the contrary. Dirt and whiskey-shops reign supreme in every direction, and the character of the people is reduced by them to a very low state of debasement. It is the misfortune of the city that the worst elements of its national character should here be combined with the worst elements of the Irish character. In all these quarters the Irish element contends with the Scotch for the ascendancy, and each is seen in its most aggravated form. The filthy hotbed for their rapid developement is a singular combination of St. Giles, Rag Fair, Billingsgate, Monmouth Street, and the Seven Dials, with bad additions peculiar to the locality. Even when seen, as I first saw them, on a bright summer's morning, the Saltmarket, and the High Street, and their purlieus, with all their materials for novelty and quaint picturesqueness, evidence so much that is sickening both to the moral and physical senses, that one leaves their precincts depressed and sad at heart, and thankful to escape to purer air and scenes. But I had afterwards an opportunity to visit these places on a Saturday night. It is then that all their peculiarities are brought most clearly upon the surface. SATURDAY NIGHT IN THE SALTMARKET. 59 The gaslight falls on a dense crowd of human beings surging like the swarm of an anthill, amid scents as numerous and diversified as those discovered by Coleridge at Cologne. All the peddling and huckstering life of the lowest grade of shops is to be found here in full force; and, of all the shops, those for the sale of whiskey are the most numerous. The disproportion that they bear to the shops for the sale of meat and tea is most suggestive. What in London would be gin-palaces, are here cellars' and 'stores.' Next in importance, in point of number, to these places, are the shops for the sale of tobacco; and, on a Saturday night in the Saltmarket, all these places are doing a roaring trade. The smoke of vile tobacco,' grown chiefly in convenient cabbage gardens, and mixed with the refuse of the true Virginian weed, hangs heavily upon the air, without purifying it. While the nose is assailed with countless stinks, the ear is stormed by a babel of bastard Scotch and bad English, mixed with fragments of genuine Gaelic, and the rolling periods and rough brogue that mark the Irish Celt. There are old clothes' shops and brokers' shops in abundance, where your presence is fervently solicited, and where you may purchase for next to nothing garments and furniture that will last you for next to no time-the dirt being given in gratis. A short, thickset gentleman with a red face, and redder hair, beseeches you to expend a bawbee on his 'harrins,' which are cheap and filling at the price. Another gentleman, also very hairy and red, forces upon you the beauties of his soft goods,' which comprise cotton, calico, handkerchiefs, and such like. A 'souter,' or shoemaker, proffers you the chance of treading in the shoes of another man, whose character, if it was as large and solid as his cast-off boots, you would |