450 DIVISION OF LABOUR IN FITTIE. [CHAP. x. 



secluded from public gaze as are a regiment of soldiers within 

 the dead walls of a barrack. The Eev. Mr. Spence, of Free 

 St. Clement's, lately completed plans of the entire "toun," 

 giving the number and the names of the tenants in every 

 house ; and from these exhaustive plans it appears that the 

 total population of the two squares was 584 giving about 

 nine inmates for each of these two-roomed houses. But the 

 case is even worse than this average indicates. " In the 

 South Square only eight of the houses are occupied by single 

 families ; and in the North Square only three, the others being 

 occupied by at least two families each one room apiece 

 and four single rooms in the North Square contain two families 

 each ! There are thirty-six married couples and nineteen 

 widows in the twenty-eight houses ; and the number of dis- 

 tinct families in them is fifty-four." The Fittie men seem 

 poorer than the generality of their brethren. They purchase 

 the crazy old boats of other fishermen, and with these, except 

 in very fine weather, they dare not venture very far from " the 

 seething harbour -bar;" and the moment they come home 

 with a quantity of fish the men consider their labours over, 

 the duty of turning the fish into cash devolving, as in all other 

 fishing communities, on the women. The young girls, or 

 "queans," as they are called in Fittie, carry the fish to market, 

 and the women sit there and sell them ; and it is thought that 

 it is the officious desire of their wives to be the treasurers of 

 their earnings that keeps the fishermen from being more en- 

 terprising. The women enslave the men to their will, and 

 keep them chained under petticoat government. Did the 

 women remain at home in their domestic sphere, looking 

 after the children and their husbands' comforts, the men 

 would then pluck up spirit and exert themselves to make 

 money in order to keep their families at home comfortable 

 and respectable. Just now there are many fishermen who 

 will not go to sea as long as they imagine their wives have 



