1.86 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Gilea Street.
Russel never failed to meet the requirements of
the day ; and for three or four months scarcely a
day passed on which he did not write one or more
articles - seventy leading articles having been
written by him, we believe, day after day.? In
testimony of his literary ability and public services
a magnificent presentation of silver plate was made
to him in 1859, at the Waterloo Rooms.
The Sofsman, which has always opposed and
exposed Phansaism and inconsistency, yet the
while giving ample place to the ecclesiastical
element-a feature in Scottish everyday life quite
incomprehensible to strangers-was in the full
zenith and plenitude of its power when Alexander
Russel died, in about the thirtieth year of his
editorship and sixty-second of his age, leaving a
blank in his own circle that may never be supplied,
for he was the worthy successor of Maclaren in the
task of making the Sofsman what it is-the sole
representative of Scottish opinion in England and
abroad; ?and that it represents it so that that
opinion does not need to hang its head in the
area of cosmopolitan discussion, is largely due to
the independence of spirit, the tact, the discernment
of character, and the unflagging energy by
which Mr. Russel imparted a dignity to the work
of editing a newspaper which it can hardly be said
to have possessed in his own country before his
time.?
Among other institutions of New Edinburgh to
be found in picturesque Cockburn Street, under the
very shadow of the old city, such as the Ear and Eye
Dispensary, instituted in 1822, and the rooms of
the Choral Society, are the permanent Orderly
Rooms of the Edinburgh Volunteer Artillery, and
the Queen?s Edinburgh Rifle Volunteer Brigade,
respectively at No. 27 and No. 35.
Both these corps were embodied in the summer
of 1859, when the volunteer movement was exciting
that high enthusiasm which happily has never died,
but has continued till the auxiliary army then,
self-summoned into existence, though opposed by
Government in all its stages, has now become one
of the most important institutions in the kingdom.
The City Artillery Volunteer Corps, commanded
in 1878 by Sir William Baillie, Bart., of Polkemet,
consisting of nine batteries, showed in 1880 a
maximum establishment of 519 (57 of whom were
non-efficients), 14 officers, and 36 sergeants.*
Formed in two battalions (with a third corps 01
cadets), the Queen?s Edinburgh Rifle Brigade, oi
In addition to this corps, there are the Midlothian Coast Volunteei
Artillery, whose headquarters are at Edinburgh, and who showed in
1877 a maximum establishment of 640,442 of whom werc etlicients, with
11: oficers and 30 sergeants. (Volunteer Blue Book.)
which the Lord Provost is honorary colonel, consists
now of 25 companies, seven of which were
called Highland, with a total strength on the 31st
of October, 1880, of 2,252 efficients, 106 nonefficients,
with 82 officers, 116 sergeants, extraproficients.
Since its embodiment in 1859 there
have enrolled in this corps more than I 1,537 men,
of whom 9,584 have resigned, leaving the present
strength, as stated, at 2,252.
As a shooting corps, and for the excellence of
its drill, it has always borne a high character, and
its artisan battalion is ? second to none ? among
the auxiliary forces. At the International Regimental
Match shot for in May, 1877, the Queen?s
Edinburgh Brigade were twice victorious, and in
the preceding year no less than 78 officers and
I 2 I sergeants received certificates of proficiency.
Under the new system the brigade forms a portion
of the 62nd, or Edinburgh Brigade DepGt,
which includes the two battalions of the 1st RoyaL
Scots Regiment, the Edinburgh or Queen?s Regiment
of Light Infantry Militia, and the Administrative
Volunteer Rifle Battalions of Berwick,
Haddington, Linlithgow, and Midlothian.
In St. Giles Street, which opens on the north
side of the High Street (opposite to the square in
which the County Hall stands) and turning west
joins the head of the mound, at the foot of Bank
Street, are the offices of the Daio and Weekly
Rwim; The GZasgow NwaM and the Eirening
limes share a handsome edifice, built like the rest
of the street, in the picturesque old Scottish style,
with crowstepped gables and pedirnented dormer
windows, and having inscribed along its front in
large letters :
THE COURANT, ESTAB. 1705.
To this office, which was specially designed for
the purpose by the late David Bryce, R.S.A., the
headquarters of the paper were removed from 188,
High Street; and in noticing this venerable organ
of the Conservative party, it is impossible to omit
some reference to the rise of journalism in Edinburgh,
where it has survived its old contemporaries,
as the CaZedonian Memuy, a continued serial from
1720, is now incorporated with the Scofsman, and
the Edinburgh Advt-rfiser, which started in January,
1764, ceased about 1860; hence the oldest existing
paper in the city is the Xdinburgh Gazetfe,
which appeared in 1699, the successor to a shortlived
paper of the same name, started in 1680.
The newspaper press of Scotland began during
the civil wars of the 17th century. A party of
Cromwell?s troops which garrisoned the citadel of
Leith in 1652, brought with them a printer named
Christopher Higgins, to reprint the London paper
