294 A CELEBRATED MANUFACTURER. 
tobacco was washed or cleansed in water, dried, and then 
ground. Now, however, the tobacco undergoes quite a 
process, and must be kept packed several months before it is 
ground into snuff. One of the most celebrated manufacturers 
of snuff was James Gillespie, of Edinburgh, who compounded 
the famous variety bearing hisname. The following account 
of him we take from “ The Tobacco Plant :”— 
“In the High Street of Edinburgh, a little east from the. 
place where formerly stood the Cross,— : 
“* Dun-Edin’s Cross, a pillar’d stone, 
Rose on a turret octagon,’ 
was situated the shop of James Gillespie, the celebrated 
snuff manufacturer. The shop is 
still occupied by a tobacconist, . 
whose sign is the head of a typical 
negro, and in one of the windows 
is exhibited the effigy of a High- 
lander, who is evidently a compe- 
tent judge of ‘sneeshin.’ Not 
much is known regarding the 
personal history of James Gilles. 
pie, but it is understood that he 
was born shortly after the Jacobite 
rebellion of 1715, at Roslin, a pic- 
turesque village about six miles 
from Edinburgh. He became a 
tobacconist in Edinburgh, along 
with his brother John, and by the 
exercise of steady industry: and 
: frugality, he was enabled to pur- 
asin Hiiceeri chase Spylaw, a small estate in 
the parish of Colinton, about four 
miles from Edinburgh, where he erected a snuff-mill on the 
banks of the Water of Leith, a small stream which flows 
through the finely-wooded grounds of Spylaw. The younger 
brother, John, attended to the shop, while the subject of our 
notice resided at Spylaw, where he superintended the snuff: 
mill. Mr. Gillespie was able to continue his industrious 
habits through a long life, and having made some successful 
speculations in tobacco during the war of American Independ- 
ence, when the ‘weed’ advanced considerably in price, he 
was enabled to increase his Spylaw estate from time to time 
