Transactionn. 69 



Thus in consideration of the gi'eat expenses of the town and 

 the great expenses of the tacksmen, some additional payment is 

 required from the sucken inhabitants, bringing up tlie multures 

 and miller's dues to 5 per cent, of the malt taken to the mills. 



These old common mills of the burgh — small buildings, which 

 with their straw-clad roofs and attendant watei'-wheels, turning 

 with self-satisfied sleepy motion — must have been picturesque 

 objects, joining rural and civic life, the scenes of multifarious 

 and varied strifes, probably also of much pleasant gossip. They 

 are one of the most frequent subjects of minute appearing in the 

 town's minute books. The several succeeding Town Councils, 

 who so unweariedly and zealously guarded the privileges attached 

 to the mills, were composed of men, many of tiiem of rank, edu- 

 cation, and wealth, who to their civic interests often joined 

 extensive landed estates in the countiy. Homer Maxwell of 

 Speddoch, at one time Provost of Dumfries, curiously enough 

 owned and occupied a house in the burgh which adjoined the 

 Over Sandbed Mill. It was tlie custom to let the town mills by 

 roup, over a long period for one year only, and ultimately for 

 three years ; and new tacksmen appear in possession nearly every 

 new let. The tacksmen must have been farmers of the revenues 

 ratlier than practical millers. Probably they might know 

 as little about the Mills as the commendators did about Church 

 matters spiritual, unconnected with the real revenues of the 

 lands and worldly profits of the See. The miller, however, seems 

 to have iiad a busy time of it. After a Hood, the "water-gangs" 

 required to be cleared of the sand with which they had been 

 filled during the spate ; in droughts, the dam-dykes needed to be 

 stopped with fog ; and at all times his eye must be abroad on the 

 sucken to see that he is not defrauded of any of his dues. But 

 the miller's greatest troubles lie within the mill. Malt is often 

 brought there and left an indefinite time, and, in tlie words of 

 the Council's minute, " albeit it should be lost," the miller is 

 blamed. If it be not lost, he is still charged with having dimin- 

 ished its quantity, or of ha\dng substituted malt of inferior 

 quality for that of better quality, wliich had been brought to liis 

 mill ; and, indeed, to clieat the miller by all fair means and the 

 most ingenious ai-tifices seems to have been the constant aim of 

 aU, from the time of Adam, the first miller of Dumfries, down- 

 wards. The working millers, if we are to judge by one example, 

 were not free of the propensity commonly attributed to the trade. 



