1 RECORDS OF THE BURGH OF LOCHMABEN. 
burgh officers to advertise the same in the burgh by tuck of drum 
and placard it in the Cross and Church dours. 
At the annual meeting for the election of Magistrates and 
Councillors, held on 29th September, 1762, Francis Carruthers 
of Dormont was proposed as a councillor, but he was objected to 
by ex-Provost Dickson on the ground that he was not a heritor in 
the burgh or a resident burgess, and the rather strong statement 
was made that his being proposed as a councillor had been 
brought about by undue influence, deceit, and perjury. In 
answer to the above objection, “no regard ought to be had to 
it, as it has been the continual practice of this burgh to admit 
councillors who were not heritors within the burgh, and as to the 
ill-natured objection thrown out that he was brought in by undue 
influence, deceit, and perjury, the same is denied, and leaves 
the proposer to make good his objection.’’ In the result Mr 
Carruthers was elected a councillor ; but the dispute, unfortunately 
for the Town Clerk, did not end with his election. Six months 
afterwards, on 19th February, at a meeting held on that date, it is 
minuted that “the Magistrates and Council, taking into their 
consideration the conduct of John Dickson, their clerk, at the 
last annual election of Magistrates and Councillors in his having 
most injuriously and impudently insinuated privately, and in 
having expressed publicly, that the bringing in Mr Carruthers 
of Dormont into the Council proceeded from fraud, deceit, and 
perjury, and by ingrossing these words into the minutes of election 
in a clandestine way, with a manifest intention to throw a base 
imputation upon the conduct and character of the Magistrates 
and Council, and the Council being conscious that their conduct 
in the whole measures that were pursued at the last election 
followed from a conviction in their own minds that they were 
acting upon just and honourable principles and for the public 
good of the burgh, and considering that such ill-natured and 
scurillous assertions must have proceeded from wicked motives in 
the said John Dickson, who is their servant, and ought to be 
severely censured, therefore the Magistrates and Council do 
hereby not only unanimously declare their consciousness of the 
‘injustice of the imputation made by the said John Dickson, but 
also ordain him to be summoned to the Council to answer to 
his conduct at that time ; they therefore appoint one of the officers 
