Broadside entitled 'Sutherland's Lament, for the loss of his Post, with his advice to John Dagless his Successor'

Commentary

This lament begins: 'I Think Auld Reikie's now grown Daft, / To Change my Lord Provo so aft, / For ae poor shot o' wrang cad waft, / They've Banish'r me: / I was the Deacon o' my Craft, / An boor the Gree.' An illegible hand-written note has been included under the title, along with the date 25th July 1722.

Sutherland was the Edinburgh hangman. He lost his post and was whipped and banished from the city on 25th July 1722. John Daglees or Dalgleish supplanted him. The National Library of Scotland also holds a broadside printed at the end of Dalgleish's tenure, entitled, 'The last speech and dying words of John Dalgleish, lock man alias hang-man of Edinburgh'.

Another broadside which the National Library of Scotland holds, 'Elegy, on the Death of Hary Ormiston, late Hangman of Edinburgh', celebrates the career of Harry Ormiston, who was Sutherland's predecessor.

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