Recent Fire in Town Hall, Dumfries. 91 



The Council Chamber and Town Clerk's rooms were con- 

 tamed in the Tolbooth — the booth where tolls or taxes were 

 taken — first and second floor areas on the east side of High 

 Street and south side of the narrow street called Union Street. 

 It was approached by a rainbow stair in the latter street, which 

 still exists. After the Council removed to the Midsteeple 

 Chambers the Tolbooth became "the Rainbow Hotel." It is 

 now occupied as printing works, and is still possessed by the 

 town. A hole beneath the rainbow stair served as a lock-up 

 until the advent of the Saat-box, in the basement of the Steeple, 

 with its cobbled floor, brown painted door with a round hole six 

 inches in diameter, crossed horizontally and vertically with iron 

 bars, for securing such light and ventilation as were deemed 

 needful. 



The Pledge House or Prison, a building of three storeys, 

 stood on the opposite side of Union Street. The middle storey 

 contained "the Thieves' Hole," and the cells there were arched 

 over with brickwork ; but the upper storey cells were not 

 strengthened or made secure against fire in this manner. 



It was in a room or cell of the upper floor where the gipsy 

 woman was incarcerated. Three men prisoners were confined in 

 the building at the same time, one for theft and the other two for 

 debt, and the latter seem to have had the run of the place. The 

 woman asked the jailor for a little piece of candle to light her to 

 bed, which he gave her, and having seen to his prisoners he, not 

 residing on the premises, locked up the prison and went home to 

 his own house. As the evening advanced the two men who had 

 the freedom of the place became sensible of a smell of burning, 

 and on proceeding to trace it they were led to the door of the 

 gipsy's cell. It was found to be locked, no answer came to their 

 call, and through the chink of the door it was seen that the bed 

 was on fire. The men then set about to raise an alarm, but it 

 was between ten and ele\'en o'clock at night before help came. 

 The jailor was brought in haste, but already the element, excel- 

 lent in the capacity of a servant but otherwise terrible, had gained 

 the mastery. Great clouds of smoke gave way to fierce tongues 

 of fire, the burning roof timbers overleaped the walls and fell on 

 the streets below, and the whole upper storey was ablaze beyond 

 die power of man to subdue or control. It was the tragic fate 

 of the gipsy woman to perish in the flames. 



