would meet with any other opposition than, may be, some doubt as to
the fiscal abilities of our income. To be sure Mr Dribbles, who at
that time kept the head inns, and was in the council, said, with a
wink, that it might be found an inconvenience to sober folk that
happened, on an occasion now and then, to be an hour later than
usual among their friends, either at his house or any other, to be
shown by the lamps to the profane populace as they were making the
best of their way home; and Mr Dippings, the candlemaker, with less
public spirit than might have been expected from one who made such a
penny by the illuminations on news of victory, was of opinion that
lamps would only encourage the commonality to keep late hours; and
that the gentry were in no need of any thing of the sort, having
their own handsome glass lanterns, with two candles in them,
garnished and adorned with clippit paper; an equipage which he
prophesied would soon wear out of fashion when lamps were once
introduced, and the which prediction I have lived to see verified;
for certainly, now-a-days, except when some elderly widow lady, or
maiden gentlewoman, wanting the help and protection of man, happens
to be out at her tea and supper, a tight and snod serving lassie,
with a three-cornered glass lantern, is never seen on the causey.
But, to return from this digression; saving and excepting the
remarks of Mr Dribbles and Mr Dippings, and neither of them could be
considered as made in a sincere frame of mind, I had no foretaste of
any opposition. I was, therefore, but ill prepared for the worrying
argument with which Mr Hickery seized upon the scheme, asserting and
maintaining, among other apparatus-like reasoning, that in such a
northern climate as that of Scotland, and where the twilight was of
such long duration, it would be a profligate waste of the public
money to employ it on any thing so little required as lamps were in
our streets.