244 TRANSACTIONS. 
these words, “and the said John is ordained to be imprisoned if he 
fail to produce her.” Amongst other offences with suitable penalties 
attached were, “saying that the magistrates did not give true 
judgment,” “ building of peat stacks upon the High Town Street,” 
“raising and pulling up of march stones,” and “ cutting and carry- 
ing away of wood” from plantations in the neighbourhood. 
Persons were frequently fined for ‘irregular marriage,” and on 
one occasion a man was prosecuted for “ resetting the Egyptians 
and also eating and drinking with them ”—in other words, for 
sheltering gypsy outlaws and fraternising with them. 
Passing from the picture of life in the burgh two centuries 
ago as reflected in the Council records, Mr Miller alluded to the 
connection of Carlyle with Annan, mentioning that the Old 
Academy, to which he was taken by his father on that “red 
sunny Whitsuntide morning ” in 1806, has long been the residence 
of Mr Batty, who for many years was Chief Magistrate of the 
burgh. The house is large and dark--one of the buildings 
which Dorothy Wordsworth had in her observant eye when she 
penned her singularly graphic description of Annan. Carlyle’s 
“doleful and hateful school life” lasted till 1810, when he was 
sent to Edinburgh University. Four years later he returned to 
Annan; having obtained by competition the post of teacher of 
mathematics in the Academy. He remained in the town till 
1816, boarding with Mr Glen, the burgher minister, in the house 
in Ednam Street now occupied as the United Presbyterian manse. 
With the name of Carlyle will always be associated that of 
Edward Irving, who was born in 1792, in a house in Butts Street. 
Gavin Irving, the father of the preacher, was a tanner, carrying on 
his trade in a yard near to his dwelling-house. He held the office 
of bailie when the election celebrated in Burns’s “ There were five 
carlins in the south” took place. His wife, Mary Lowther, was a 
native of the parish of Dornock, where her father owned a piece 
of land. She was a handsome woman, with brilliant black eyes, 
and her energy and force of character won the admiration of all 
who came in contact with her. Irving received his education at 
Annan Academy, ot which the talented Dalgliesh was head master. 
In a few sentences the lecturer outlined Irving’s meteoric career, 
and remarked that not a few of his townsmen would still tell with 
strange awe how they witnessed in their youth his solemn deposi- 
tion in Annan Parish Church and listened to the ery of anguish 
which burst from his lips when his opinions were condemned. 
