Transactions. 59 



Edinburgh folk that slrawberries are still sold there in the same 

 condition. The increase of wealth, however, produced many 

 changes in the hnbits of the people. In the twenty years from 

 1763 to 1783 the dinner hour for people of fashion had changed 

 from two to four or five o'clock in the afternoon, and wine, which 

 had been seldom seen at tradesmen's tables, or only in small 

 quantities in 1763, was often to be found in 1783 in plenty and 

 variety. Among the other changes was laxity in church-going. 

 Sunday came generally to be considered as a day of relaxation, 

 and families began to think it ungenteel to take their domestics 

 to church with them. There was, according to Mr Creech, a 

 remarkable contrast between the manners of the two periods — 

 the decency, dignity, and delicacy of the one, as compared with 

 the looseness, dissipation, and licentiousness of the other. As to 

 minor morals, in 1763, in the best families in town, the education 

 of daughters was fitted not only to embellish and improve their 

 minds, but to accomplish them in the useful and necessary arts 

 of domestic economy. The sewing school, the pastry school were 

 then essential branches of female education, nor was a young lady 

 of the best family ashamed to go to market with her mother. In 

 1 783, says Creech, the daughters of many tradesmen consumed 

 the mornings at the toilet or in strolling from shop to shop. 

 Many of them would have blushed to be seen in a market, and 

 the young lady employed those heavy hours when disengaged 

 from public or private amusements in " improving her mind from 

 the precious stores of the circulating library "; and all, whether 

 they had a taste for it or not, were taught music at a great 

 expense. There was little alteration, he laments, in 1791. Ditto, 

 one might add, in 1892. 



The comparative view of the state of the country parish is 

 perhaps still more interesting and important as a gauge of 

 material progress in Scotland during these two remarkable 

 decades. In 1763, the writer tells us, land in this parish was 

 rented on an average at 6s an acre, and only two small farms 

 were enclosed ; in 1783 rent had risen to 18s an acre, and all the 

 land was enclosed with thorn hedges and stone dykes. There 

 was no wheat, except half an acre by the minister, no grass, no 

 turnips, sown in the parish, or potatoes planted in the open fields 

 in 1763 ; in 1783 there wei'e above 9 acres sown with wheat, and 

 about three-fifths of the ground was under grass, turnips, 



