Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1879 - Edinburgh

Old Town — The Lands. 7
children ; big-mouthed, robust women, in a sort of uniform of striped flannel petticoat and short
tartan shawl : among these, a few supervising constables and a dismal sprinkling of mutineers
and broken men from higher ranks in society, with some mark of better days upon them, like
a brand. In a place no larger than Edinburgh, and where the traffic is mostly centered in five
or six chief streets, the same face comes often under the notice of an idle stroller. In fact, from
this point of view, Edinburgh is not so much a small city as the largest of small towns.
It is scarce possible to avoid observing your neighbours ; and I never yet heard of any one who
— *VG£t r^cTLJc
OLD BOW-HEAD, LAWNMARKET, EDINBURGH.
tried. It has been my fortune, in this anonymous accidental way, to watch more than one
of these downward travellers for some stages on the road to ruin. One man must have been
upwards of sixty before I first observed him, and he made then a decent, personable figure
in broadcloth of the best. For three years he kept falling — grease coming and buttons going
from the square-skirted coat, the face puffing and pimpling, the shoulders growing bowed,
the hair falling scant and grey upon his head ; and the last that ever I saw of him, he was
standing at the mouth of an entry with several men in moleskin, three parts drunk, and his
old black raiment daubed with mud. I fancy that I still can hear him laugh. There was