Ayrshire > Volume 1

THE SOCIAL MARCH OF THE SHIRE 337
dress and mode of living were " dirty, mean, and
pernicious ;" at the close of it the huts had given way
to. neat cottages, the dress was " much less inelegant,"
and, in some instances, the rising wages had tended to
vanity in dress, and even to dissipation. There was
not much chance, however, of the labourers laying by
money, and when they were old they had frequently to
look to the parish for aid. Besides these, the parish
provided for " idiots and furious persons, and the
children of those who died in poverty." The farmers
were much less addicted as a class than they had been
to intemperance, and were general^ attentive to the
education of their families.
Half a century before 1794 there were only about
twenty-four houses in Girvan, and the population was
little over an hundred ; at the date mentioned, the
inhabitants numbered a thousand. The increase was
mainly due to the development of the fishing industry,
but the practice of smuggling had contributed "in no
small degree " to the rise in population and the growth
of prosperity. With the exception of about a score of
Seceders and two Roman Catholics, all the people
belonged to the Established Church. Barr, among the
hills, rejoiced in its good health ; for fifty years " an
eminent surgeon " had never known an epidemical
distemper within its bounds. "Consumptions" prevailed,
none the less. The instances were many of persons
living to eighty and upwards. There was, in 1794 a
woman of ninet}', " who remembers well the young men
in this place learning the use of arms in 1715, and was
reaping on a corn ridge when they passed by to join the
loyalists." Dissent was at a discount in Colmonell,
the poor were few, and the people as a whole were sober,
industrious, and religious. The farmers had a grievance
in being compelled to carry all their grindable grain to
particular mills, or to pay a stipulated multure, which
was frequently not less than a tenth of the value of the
stuff carried to the mill ; sometimes even higher. In
Ballantrae the marriages, "as would be expected"