Broadside concerning a ludicrous wedding in Crosscauseway, Edinburgh

Commentary

This humourous story begins: 'A Full and Particular Account of that Funny and Laughable WEDDING that took place in Crosscauseway, Edinburgh, on Tuesday Evening, the 15th March 1825, between a young Dashing Highland Lad, and a well known Old Lady of that place.' The broadside was priced at one penny and published by A. Turnbull. This is probably Andrew Turnbull & Co, a publisher based in Edinburgh's High Street in the nineteenth century.

The humour in this broadside is of the cruellest sort, especially if the story has any basis in fact. A young Highlander proposes marriage to an elderly, wealthy lady, then absconds with a large sum of her money, leaving her at the altar. The bride-to-be is presented an object of ridicule for her naivety and vanity in believing that the proposal mght be genuine. The would-be groom is a stereotypical Highlander, of the sort commonly found in satirical literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He is impoverished, dishonest and works as a night watchman, an unpopular vocation particularly associated with Highland migrants to Edinburgh.

Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.

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