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excellent cabinet making business. Their handiwork was 
made to last, not merely to sell, for | have sundry specimens 
of it in my possession at the present time, as good as when put 
together, more than sixty years ago. The shopkeepers in those 
days must have made money, for in after years I recognised 
several of them comfortably located in suburban villas. The 
principal inn was the King’s Arms, then kept by Mr Fraser, 
who was afterwards Provost of the burgh. 
The chief medical men at this date were Doctors Maxwell, 
Melville, and Symons, and Mr Blacklock, a former navy surgeon. 
Dr Maxwell I have heard spoken of as ‘‘ Dagger Maxwell,” from 
some popular notion that he was favourable to the French 
Revolution. Those who remember Dr Melville will doubtless 
recollect a peculiar habit he had of hitching up his “pants” 
when he stopped to speak to any one in the street. They were 
all able men in their vocation, but differed somewhat in their 
mode of practice, a licence which is generally accorded to doctors, 
as well as to poets, without implying any disparagement to either. 
The clergy of the Established Church.at this period were Dr 
Scott of St. Michael’s, a portly looking gentleman, who in hot 
weather walked the street carrying his hat in his hand. Dr 
Duncan was the minister of the New Kirk, and the Rev. Charles 
Babington, an M.A. of Oxford, was the incumbent of the 
Episcopal Chapel. The Nonconformist body was represented by 
the Rev. Walter Dunlop, who was somewhat of a “character,” 
and was gifted with a large amount of ready humour. [I have a 
lively remembrance of his personal appearance—a tall stout man, 
with a large genial countenance, wearing a broad brimmed hat 
and a wide skirted coat; walking with a swinging step, and 
carrying a dark coloured “gamp” umbrella tucked under his 
arm, with the horn handle projecting from beneath his shoulder. 
Numerous jokes and witticisms have been laid to his charge, and 
some of them have appeared in print. The following anecdote 
concerning him was related to me by the person who was an 
actor in the scene, and has not, I think, been made public. The 
Rey. Walter, as not unfrequently happened, going one afternoon 
to take tea with a member of his congregation, who lived in the 
country, accidentally met a son of the rev. doctor of the New Kirk, 
and invited him to accompany him. On arriving at the farm 
house, he proposed to the inmates to give them “‘a prayer” before 
tea, as, I believe, was his custom. The gude wife excused herself 
