SCOTI^ND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 25 



to do wi' the stars, I wad like to ken ?" she scolded. 

 "Drive on this moment, and be dawmed to ye," add- 

 ing in a lower tone, according to her wont, "as Sir 

 John wad ha' said if he had been alive, honest 

 man."* 



Among the poorer people there were worse things 

 yet to be seen and heard. The unquestioning trust 

 in the doctrine that everything would be as it must 

 be in spite of anything that might be done led the 

 people to neglect sanitary conditions entirely. Sev- 

 eral families were frequently crowded into the same 

 house and the most odious diseases ran riot un- 

 checked. "One hundred and fifty families," Birt 

 declared, "may live on ground paying £80 a year."t 

 The resulting horror of the conditions of these poor 

 people is illustrated by the record of twenty-one 

 persons having been prosecuted for uncleanliness by 

 the Sheriff of Paisley in the year 171 5. t In the 

 coal pits and mines even more pitiable circumstances 

 were to be found, and an actual system of white 

 slavery of the most horrible sort existed there until 

 1799. An act of 1775 emancipated all who after 

 that date might "begin to work as colliers and salt- 

 ers,"§ but the rest were not freed until the close of 

 the century. 



In the very punishments administered the age 

 made evident its brutality and want of culture. It 

 was common to strike off a man's hands before 

 hanging him,|| and the borough records of Lanark 



* Stirling Maxwell's Miscellaneous Essays," p. 160. 



t Birt's I^etters, II, p. 343. 



t Hector's "Judicial Records of Renfrewshire," p. 80. 



§ Cockburn's Memorials, p. 76, 



II Graham's "Social Life," II, p. 225. 



