292 Scottish Life in the 17TH Century. 



public-houses, and by local enactment anticipated and even 

 out-did Forbes Mackenzie, ordering the houses to be closed 

 altogether on Sundays and at ten o'clock on week nights. The 

 national legislature was equally advanced on the temperance 

 platform. An Act passed in 1661 enjoined Justices to be diligent 

 in putting into execution the Acts " for the punishing of all 

 persons found guilty of the sin of drunkenness or excessive drink- 

 ing, especially under the names of healths, or haunting taverns 

 or ale-houses after ten of the clock at night, or at any time of 

 the day except in time of travel, or for ordinary refreshments." 

 The municipal Act was indeed practically a repetition of the 

 general statute, embodied in the local records probably as a 

 means of publishing it. The vice of intemperance and that of 

 profane swearing seem to have been characteristic of all classes, 

 not excepting the clergy, if we may judge from the terms of 

 another statute of the same year. — (Read Act 19 of the Scottish 

 Parliament held at Edinburgh in January, 166 1-2.). 



An Act of Council passed late in the century disqualified any 

 person who made or sold intoxicating liquor from acting as 

 Provost ; in the eighteenth century the prohibition was extended 

 to all offices of the magistracy. 



Along with the Kirk Session, the Town Council was largely 

 occupied in trying persons who took part in drunken brawls. 

 They were, moreover, belie\'ers in that sound maxim that " Pre- 

 vention is better than cure ; ' ' but their way of putting their faith 

 into practice was repugnant in some particulars to modern ideas. 

 Thus, they argued that these brawls frequently arose out of 

 festive and social meetings; and therefore, striking as they would 

 no doubt think at the root of the matter, they passed a law 

 strictlv limiting the attendance at marriages, baptisms, and 

 funerals under pain of fine or imprisonment; and they also fixed 

 a limit within which the expense of entertainments on such 

 occasions should be restricted. In this again they were echoing 

 the legislature. — (Read Act 14 of the third Scottish Parliament 

 of King Charles II., September 13, r68i — "Act restraining the 

 exorbitant expense of marriages, baptisms, and burials."). 



The Town Council and Kirk Session not only framed 

 stringent laws for the regulation of the drink trade, but they were 

 vigilant in seeing that they were observed. The modern police 

 force was then represented only by the town officers, who had 

 other duties to discharge ; and the civic rulers undertook in this 

 matter to lend them voluntary assistance. Eight members of 

 Council were specially told off, in committees of two, to keep a 

 watch upon the public-houses in the four quarters of the town : 

 and a like number of members of Kirk Session were appointed 

 to attend at the gates to the town on the afternoon of market 

 days and make a note of any persons who were seen under the 

 influence of liquor, with instructions to have them apprehended 



