Transactions. 23 



Communications. 



I. Dumfries 2jo Years Ago. By Mr James S. Thomson. 



I intend in these few notes to call up a few of the characteris- 

 tics of society as it existed here 250 years ago. The features are 

 .strongly akin in many particulars to those existing in our own 

 time — the same failings are here portrayed and the same virtues, 

 and the names are often those of dwellers in our midst. The 

 notes are mainly taken from past records of old session-books, 

 thetrutli of which I have taken pains to ascertain. In reading over 

 the old records of the town — both municipal and sessional — one is 

 taken back to the time of intense religious feeling and hard fight- 

 ing that then existed in Scotland. Let me briefly I'ecall the 

 position of affairs during the period from 1635 to 1654. The 

 National Covenant was signed in 1638, and the General Assembly 

 had become rather than Parliament the power of the land, and, as 

 has been justly observed, " Cluirch and State were not convertible 

 terms, but the former permeated the latter so thoroughly that the 

 Goverinnent wore quite a Theocratic aspect. What the Assembly 

 resolved upon the estates readily assented to." The remembrance 

 of this has to be borne in mind when the various penalties enforced 

 are mentioned here. Various matters are touched upon that have 

 an aspect almost comic in the light of the present, showing history 

 to be repeating itself in small as well as great events. There is 

 an impression that life at this time was i)ainfully austere, but from 

 these records we gather that people's daily life was somewhat like 

 what exists in the present. Concurrent with deep religious feeling 

 there existed amongst the better clfiss the weak brother whose life 

 was not all that the minister could have wished. Dealing first 

 with the social habits of the town, we find a set of roystering 

 blades Avho carried their drinking to the extent of having the town 

 drummer to assist them in their orgies, and it is ordained ; " Nov. 

 1, 16-19. That the session, resenting the great dishonour done to 

 the liord by sundry persons in this burgh in the height of their 

 cups, not oidy abusing the creature to the excess of riot through 

 drinking of healths, but likewise by calling the drummer to beat 

 the drum at every health, do tlierefore discharge the drummer to 

 answer any persons in such ungodly demand under pain of 

 inflicting upon him the sharpest measure of kirk discipline and 

 extruding him from his jjlace withal. Margaret D., spouse to 

 James L. D., to be rebuked in sackcloth for the sin of drunken- 



