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

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Merchants are a respectable, well educated, and wealthy
body. The taverns and ale-houses are deserted, for the
drawing-room and their friends ; and elegance and hospita-
lity preside at their tables. The country squires have, for
the present, quitted the town. Like Cincinnatus, they have
returned to the ploughshares and to their seats, and have
thus become Borough seccders. They find, that by time,
they have acquired very respectable and opulent rivals in
the city ; that a couple of mansions are not now necessary
to spend one rent roll, and that self-consequence and ' uport-
ance are delicate and tender plants, that are much more
quietly reared and nursed in wilds and heaths, and amongst
mountains and forests, than in the bustly circle of mercan-
tile and independent community. We have three Banking-
houses. The old banking company established here in
1763, now do business, it is thought, to at least sixteen
times the extent they did at first setting out.
The Post goes and returns daily. A mail coach from
Edinburgh to Aberdeen has been established since August
last, and travellers of every description profit by such con-
veniency. Letters are received here the third day from
London.
The Streets are rather better lighted up ; nor are W3
gropping about like Cupids or Jocky Blind Man in the
dreary month of December.
We formerly had one single Horse Gig — we have now,
at least, a dozen of elegant four wheeled Chaises, and from
trade and population, these are in constant demand and
employ.
In 1 746 we had only one Carter — we have now one kun-
'dred and thirty ; and nothing marks the increase of the town
more than this article.
Gentlemen and Ladies and Servants, are well dressed, and
neatly habited. Even our kitchen wenches carry umbrellas,,
and wear veils, to protect their pretty persons from the in-
clemency of the winter sky, and their beauty and charms
from the sun and dews of the summer. The fashion and
ton in one article is wholly changed : the ladies alone now
wear wigs, and the gentlemen are turned croppies and
round-heads.