llO • Proceedings of the Boyal Society 
take up his shilling. The business of letting thus proceeded till 
the candle was burnt out, and the last bidder, prior to that event, 
was declared the tenant of the outlet, or outdrift for the ensuing year. 
“ Two overseers were annually elected from the proprietors or their 
tenants. A quantity of strong ale or brown-stout was allowed for 
the feast, or ‘ revel,’ as it was called ; also bread, butter, and cheese, 
together with pipes and tobacco, of which any reputable person, 
whose curiosity or casual business led him to Puxton on that day, 
was at liberty to partake, but he was expected to deposit at his 
departure one shilling with the overseer by way of forfeit for his 
intrusion. The day was generally spent in sociality and mirth, 
frequently of a boisterous nature, from the exhilarating effects of 
the brown-stout before alluded to.”* 
But we have, as is well known, in our immediate vicinity in the 
burgh of Lauder and at Newton of Ayr equally interesting survivals; 
—that of Lauder especially, where 105 burgess lots are held under 
a charter of 1502 renewing more ancient charters which had 
perished, and conferring power on the burgesses and community 
to break up and plough their common lands. The possession 
of one of these burgess acres or lots is essential to being a burgess, 
and only burgesses are members of the Town Council. The 
burgess acres consist of lots of from one and a half to three and 
a half acres, but the burgh holds besides a common of 1700 acres, 
which is thus dealt with. Once in every five or seven years about 
130 acres of the common is set off to be ploughed up and culti- 
vated ; the part thus broken up is divided into 105 lots, and each 
owner of a burgess acre is entitled to a lot which is determined 
by lot. On the rest of the moor such of the 105 burgesses as are 
residents pasture each fifteen sheep and two cows, and the widow of 
a burgess pastures twelve sheep and one cow. Here then we have 
the Lauder burgess with his homestead” in Lauder, his share of 
the “ arable mark” in his acres, and his share of the “pasture” and 
“ waste” in the moor; and we have the Council of Lauder prescrib- 
ing to each burgess the kind of cultivation he is to pursue on the lot 
of the common land assigned to him. Somewhat similar tenures pre- 
vailed in Newton of Ayr,f in Crawford in Dumfriesshire,^ where 
* Holie’s Booh of Lays, vol. ii. p. 918. 
t Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 263. 
X Idem, vol. iv. p. 512. 
