132 Notes and Sketches. 



somewhat outrageous kind. Many hospitable gentle- 

 men made it their practice at the social board to see all 

 their guests, if not literally under the table, at least in a 

 condition to require assistance to bed before breaking 

 up for the evening. And it was wonderful how even 

 the common people " boosed" and got glorious on their 

 " tippeny" when what seemed fit occasion, public or 

 private, offered.* On this question of fitness the 

 notions that prevailed were certainly not over strict 

 amongst any of the classes of society. Nothing, for 

 example, strikes us as more incongruous or ill-timed 

 than the excesses that were wont so generally to prevail 

 in connection with the solemnities of death and the 

 grave. In his book on " Social Life in Former Days," 

 Captain Dunbar gives a letter from a Mr. William 

 Forbes, excusing himself from attending a funeral at 

 Elgin. The date is 1742, and the writer says, "I told 

 you that I could not doe myself the honour to witness 

 the interment of your worthy father. This is to tell 

 you that I have been drinking this whole day with our 

 Magistrates and Town Council (God bless them), and 

 am just now almost unfitt for your conversation, and 

 therefor choose to goe home rather than expose myself ; 

 which I hope you will approve off." Mr. Forbes had 

 either been an unduly sensitive man, or the " spate" in 

 which he had indulged with the Magistrates must have 

 left him in a very queer state; for in his day, and 'even 

 a good deal later, it was not very uncommon to find 

 that the major part of a funeral company had got more 

 or less tipsy before they "lifted." Instances have been 

 known of the " bearers" staggering so badly from the 

 effect of their libations as nearly to pull the coffin they 

 carried in pieces; and such tales have been told as that of 



* Captain Burt says the price of the ale he got acquainted with 

 was twopence for a Scots pint. The liquor was disagreeable to 

 those not used to it, the malt which was dried with peat, turf, or 

 furze, giving it ft taste of the fuel. " "When the natives drink 

 plentifully of it," he adds, "they interlace it with brandy or 

 usky." 



