General Improvement. fi 1 7 



least appears to be Kirkcudbright. In the suburbs of the enlarged towns, 

 villas and ornamental cottages have been built, though, as yet, only to a 

 moderate extent. The neighbourhoods of Greenock, Port Glasgow, and 

 Paisley contain most of these residences, because these towns have longest 

 enjoyed the benefits of improved manufactures and commerce. The intro- 

 duction of steam-boats for the conveyance of live stock to distant markets 

 has increased the value of land on the west coast generally, from the 

 Orkneys to Liverpool, and especially in Dumfriesshire, Kircudbrightshire, 

 Wigtonshire, and Ayrshire. The formation of harbours and piers at 

 Troon by the Duke of Portland, and at Ardrossan and Saltcoats by the 

 Earl of Eglinton and others, has opened a new market for the coal and 

 lime raised in the interior, and brought down to these ports by railroads. 

 The great increase of the commerce and shipping of Greenock and Port 

 Glasgow is well known. The introduction, by Mr. Thom, of a canal 

 of water along the summit of a ridge of hills, which in its descent to 

 the Clyde will turn thirty overshot wheels, each 50 ft. in diameter, is 

 one of the grandest and most original improvements which have ever 

 been made for any town. By embanking the Clyde so as to confine its 

 waters to a narrower channel in some places, and by the employment 

 of machinery in others, that channel has been deepened so as to admit 

 vessels of 200 tons to reach Glasgow ; whereas, before, nothing but a com- 

 mon barge could go farther up than Port Glasgow. A canal, which had 

 been projected from Glasgow to Ardrossan, by Paisley and Johnstone, and 

 executed as far as the latter village, has, by the deepening of the Clyde, 

 been in a great degree superseded, and will probably not be completed ; but 

 on this canal vessels with passengers are carried along at the rate of nine 

 miles an hour by horses, and a new plan is now under experiment for 

 applying steam so as to effect the same object, and even to increase the 

 speed. The manufactories of Paisley and Kilmarnock have greatly 

 increased, and villas are consequently building round both towns. The 

 manufacturing establishment at Catrine, in Ayrshire, is one of the most 

 perfect of the kind which we have ever seen, not only with reference to its 

 machinery and buildings, but to the comforts, cleanliness, and morals of the 

 workmen. Almost all of these live in houses and cultivate gardens which 

 are their own property ; and they not only support a respectable extra- 

 parochial school, but one or more places of worship. In the parish schools 

 throughout the west of Scotland the routine of education has been slightly 

 improved by the introduction of miscellaneous reading, but the great defects 

 of these establishments remain the same. 



A Horticultural Society has been established in Dumfriesshire, and an- 

 other in Ayrshire; both of which have done much good. The latter 

 Society has the great merit of having connected with it a horticultural and 

 agricultural library, the books of which are circulated freely among the 

 gardeners and farmers of the county of Ayr who are members. In all the 

 other towns there are general public libraries and reading-rooms ; in Paisley 

 there are no fewer than seven of the latter. At least half a dozen news- 

 papers have been commenced in this district since we last passed through it, 

 and are now continued. These papers, and the growing taste for reading, 

 together with the changes that have taken place in the pecuniary circum- 

 stances of most men since the peace, have greatly increased their moral 

 and political knowledge, and their desire for the enjoyment of free and 

 liberal institutions. When we left Scotland, the poorer classes of society 

 could scarcely be said to have an opinion on political subjects; or, if they 

 had, they did not dare to avow it. Now, high political intelligence is general 

 among all ranks in the west of Scotland; and the sound knowledge of 

 the science of government, which has been displayed by the journey- 

 men weavers of Paisley and Glasgow, has not been surpassed by men of 

 any rank in any country. (See Results of Machinery, 3d edit. p. 6.) 



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