160 , Transactions. 



years ago spent on the poor £5 per hundred of the jjopulation, or 

 £4 per j£100 of the rental. We spend at least £25 per hundred of 

 the population. The proportion as regards the rental is about <£4 

 9s per £100. 



It thus appears that a hundred years have brought great 

 changes to the Queen of the South. The population has been con- 

 siderably more than doubled, the yearly rental has heen quadrupled, 

 wages have increased about three-fold, and the price of most 

 articles of food is more than doubled. 



In Dr Burnside's time the town consisted, he informs us, of 

 eight or nine streets and six or eight lanes. The streets would be 

 the High Street, Fiiars' Vennel, the East Barnraw (now Loreburn 

 Street), the West Barnraw (now Irish Street), the Kiritgate (now 

 St. Michael Street), Townhead Street (now Academy Street), Loch- 

 maben Gate (now English Street), and probably Queensberry Street 

 and King Street. The new bridge was then unbuilt, and all Castle 

 Street, George Street, and Buccleuch Street were fields or gardens. 

 The Town Hall and Court-House were in the Midsteeple, and 

 underneath that were the Weigh-House and the Town Guard House. 

 In the block of buildings where Mr Adams has his bookbinding 

 shop were the Council Chambers and adjoining that was the Prison. 

 On the site of the Militia Barracks was a House of Correction. 

 Moorheads' Hospital was scarcely fifty years old, the old Infirmary 

 was recently erected, and the Theatre was just opened. The 

 churches were St. Michael's — the only one which remains in 

 external appearance as it was — the old New Church, the Episcopal 

 Meeting-House in English Street, the Anti-Burgher Church on the 

 site of Loreburn Street U.P. Church, and the Relief Church in 

 what is now the wool store in Queensberry Street. 



Dr Burn side, in various parts of his MSS., speaks with satis- 

 faction on the improved condition of the people. He had met men 

 who remembered when there were only four carts in Dumfries — 

 two for hire and two the property of gentlemen who had purchased 

 wood, and when all the ordinary transport was done by creels and 

 sledges. He was proud of there being a stage coach daily to 

 Edinburgh and an English and an Irish mail coach daily, and 

 looked forward to there being before long a Glasgow coach. He 

 mentions with satisfaction that a waggon from Carlisle, with six 

 horses, comes to town and goes out again weekly, that there are 

 eight or ten post chaises kept at the inns, that six families in the 

 parish each keep a four-wheeled chaise, and that four have whiskeys. 



