Towns > Glasgow > 1787 - Reprint of Jones's directory; or, Useful pocket companion for the year 1787

INTRODUCTION.
TN introducing the little work of Nathaniel Jones, it may
be advisable to give the "reader some idea of the
condition and dimensions of our good city at the date of
its publication. It may also be worth while to look back
through the previous history of Glasgow, in order to note
the state of manners, and the rate of progression in
numbers, wealth, and civilization. While doing so, I shall
not attempt to penetrate the obscurity of the early ages,
or to inflict on the reader a true and particular account of
St. Kentigern's birth, parentage, and miracles. Neither
shall I open up the dreary roll of our Popish ecclesiastics,
from Mungo to Archbishop Beaton, as that would be
entirely out of place in a new introduction to an old
Directory. I shall start with the Reformation, by stating
that the number of inhabitants in the city of Glasgow at
that time did not exceed 4,500, according to several
authorities that need not be named. In those days the
majority of the houses were congregated about the
bishop's palace and the upper portion of the High Street;
and the common people are described as living in a state
of ignorance, poverty, and semi-barbarism. In troublous
times men went about the streets constantly armed; and
it was not by any means uncommon for clergymen to
appear in the pulpit "fully equipped with deadly weapons,
in the shape of swdrds, daggers, and pistols. Intestine
feuds were every-day Occurrences; and wrongs were righted
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