Towns > Edinburgh > 1832-1838 - Gray's annual directory > 1832-1833

APPENDIX.
PROSPECTUS.
It is usual, in presenting the public with the
first number of a new periodical publication,
to say something by way of introduction and
recommendation. In the present instance,
there is perhaps but little necessity for either,
unless it be because it is sometimes well to
point to objects, which, however plain when
our attention is once directed towards them,
have oeen previously unobserved, and to
remind people of that which they already
know, but do not think of. The uses of a street
and classified directory are, however, rather
numerous than individually great, and to enu-
merate them would be tedious, and, in many
instances, frivolous ; but the largest bodies are
composed of minute particles, and there can be
no doubt that, at the year's end, every pur-
chaser of this Directory will deem himself
amply repaid its cost by the utility it will
have been of to him.
The first part of this volume contains the
names of the Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, Mer-
chants, Traders, and principal inhabitants of
Edinburgh, Leith, and Newhaven, arranged in
fifty-five districts ; each of which consists of a
continuous range of streets, and the fifty-five
comprise the whole of the three towns.
In the formation of these districts consider-
able pains have been taken. Having upon a
former occasion subdivided the town in a
similar manner for the purposes of the North
British Advertiser, I had in the publication
entitled " Circulation " of that paper, the
work roughly done to my hand ; but those
districts, twenty-seven in number, were formed
for a particular purpose, and it has been found
that, with a view to more general utility, it
was necessary to make a much more perfect
division.
Accordingly, after making a general outline
from the aforesaid book, with the assistance
also of the best plans of Edinburgh and Leith,
I first divided the town into fifty-five districts
from actual survey, and then, having finished
the work, I went over the whole of the tovra
a second time to revise and correct it. And,
not an inch of ground, as I believe, being
missed either in Edinburgh, Leith, or New-
haven, I can confidently recommend these
districts, or divisions, to those who may have
use for them, as being very completely formed,
though still perhaps capable of some improve-
ment: the desideratum being that, book in
hand, a man who continues to walk with it
for his guide, may pass the door of every
individual inhabitant of the three towns with
as little walking as possible. And I guarantee
that any one is now enabled to accomplish
this, if not with as little walking as possible,
certainly with as little as may be suitable for
any business purpose whatever. Time, indeed,
is lost only in passing from the end of one
district to the beginning of another, which
will be no loss wherever a man is employed
to each district ; and when otherwise, walking
may be saved, by passing from the end of one
district to the end of another, instead of to the
beginning of it. See Districts two and three
for example. This hint may be useful to the
publishers of newspapers and others, who,
for their especial purposes, may either reduce
the number of the districts by putting two or
three into one, or still farther multiply them
by a more minute subdivision, as occasion
may require.
The first arrangement will, it is believed, be
of incredible utility to all persons who have
occasion to distribute hand bills, circular letters,
cards, &c. Presenting, as it does, at one view
the names of the inhabitants of every street
respectively, and that too in the order in which
circulars may be most easily delivered, it will