Towns > Dundee > 1822 - Dundee delineated; or, A history and description of that town, its institutions, manufactures and commerce

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Towns Revenue. — The town's revenue was then In a Sow
state. The present town-house, or public building, had been
lately erected and had cost a round sum. One of its public
rooms (the west one) was not finished till near twenty year*
after the building. A, Provost Fletcher had, before that
period, given a severe wound to the funds by vanity and ex-
travagance, and by entertaining the convention of borough*
in this place. It therefore required wisdom, time and
ecomony, to repair the breach, and to bring the funds again
to useful and public purposes.
Sunday. — The Sunday or Sabbath was kept holy and de-»
cent ; old women went to church with their bibles under
one arm, and a folding stool under the other. Those per-
sons who did not attend at church gave at least no public
offence, and disturbed not those that did : None but a
straggling blackguard or two, who were deemed to be past
all grace and reformation, were seen idle and parading in
the streets during divine service, or in any part of the day,
or even in the evening. Field ambulation was not practised
on that day. There were seizers in those days, and boys
were not then publicly permitted to infest the streets and
lanes, and to play at marbles, penny~stone, or pal-aals, to
the offending of tender and sober consciences, and to the
extinction of all decorum in a Christian society.
Passage Boats and Piers. — The boats of the passage
were not then decked, and it must be confessed, were in-
sufficient ; and there was no sloping, shipping and landing
pier at all time of the tide. These, too deservedly, impres-
sed travellers against it, and there was too much reason for
their complaint.
Water. — Water-pipes for the supply of the inhabitants
from the Lady-well fountain, had then been introduced,
and a few wells were placed in convenient situations for
that purpose.
Such was the general state of the town (for I am not
writing a minjute history). Many other matters stood
nearly on the same footing as now. As, for example,
swallows* nests, as far as I can learn, were built in the same
manner, and were as wantonly destroyed by school boys.—
Q