266 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. rHigh Street.
was, in 1876, LIZ 5s. zd., the total cost being
A~,ggo 18s. zd.
The directors of the United Industrial School
may fairly claim to have practically solved the
greatest difficulty of the educational question ; and
their institution was one of the earliest of its class
to give effect to thediscovery that the training of
?? ragged school ? pupils in such merely mechanical
and elementary work as teasing hair, picking
oakum, net-making, and so forth, was little better
than a waste of time, when compared with that initiation
in skilled handicrafts of the simple order,
which would qualify the children on leaving school
to assume something like an independent position
in life. In the annual repat for 1860 appears the
following :-?The total number of children who
have received the benefit of our school is 950, and
Mr. Fergusson has by patient and laborious investigation,
during six months past, ascertained the
present earnings of upwards of two-thirds of that
.number. These earnings represent the scarcely
credible sum of AI 1,596. From the report of the
following year we learn that the superintendent, by
a most strict investigation, found the sum of annual
earning that year was nearly ~~;I,OOO higher-the
nett sum being A12,472.?
This elaborate record has not been kept up;
but there is no reason to doubt that had it been.so,
the succeeding years would have shown the same
result.
CHAPTER XXXII.
ALLEYS OF THE HIGH STREET ?(continued).
Toddrick?s Wynd-Banquet to the Danish Ambassador and Nobles-Lord Leven?s House in Skinner?s Close-The First Mint Houses-The
Mint-Scottish Coin-Mode of its Manufacture-Argyle?s Lodging-Dr. Cullen-Elphinstone?s Court-Lords Loughborough and Stonefield-
Lord Selkirk-Dr. Rutherford, the Inventor of Gas.
banquet was given existed till recently j but the BELOW Blackfriars Street opens Toddrick?s Wynd,
to which a special interest is attached, from its association
with one of the darkest deeds of a lawless
age, for it was by that dark and narrow alley that
James Hepburn Earl of Bothwell and his heartless
accomplices proceeded towards the gate of the
Blackfriars monastery in the Cowgate, on the night
of the 9th of February, 1567, to fire the powder
lodged in the vaults of the provost?s house in the
Kirk-of-field,
- ?(and blew a palace into atoms,
Sent a young king-a young queen?s mate at least,
Into the air, as high as e?er flew night-hawk,
And made such wild work in the realm of Scotland
As they can tell who heard.?
Till the recent demolitions, the closes between
this point and the Netherbow remained unchanged
in aspect, and in the same state for centuries, szve
that they had become wofully degraded by the
habits, character, and rank of their inhabitants.
In Toddrick?s Wynd, a lofty building with a
massive polished ashlar front at the foot thereof,
and long forming a prominent object amid the
faded grandeur of the Cowgate, was the abode of
Thomas Aitchison, master of the Mint ; and therein,
in 1590, the provost and magistrates, at the expense
of the city, gave a grand banquet to the
ambassador and nobles of Denmark, who had come
to Scotland in the train of Queen Anne.
The handsome alcoved chamber in which the
style- of the entertainment would seem to have been
remarkable for abundance rather than elegance.
There were simply bread and meat, with four boins
of beer, four gangs of ale, and four puncheons of
wine. The house, however, was hung with rich
tapestry, and the tables were decorated with
chandeliers and flowers. We hear, too, of napery,
of ?( two dozen great vessels,? and of ?? cup-buirds
andmen to keepthem.? Thefurnishing of the articles
had been distributed among the dignitaries of the
city, with some reference to their respective trades.
Aniong those present at the banquet were Peiter
Monck, admiral of Denmark ; Stephen Brahe (a
relative, perhaps, of the great Tycho Brahe) captain
of Eslingburg ; Braid Ransome Maugaret ; Theophilus,
Doctor of Laws; Henry Goolister, captain -
of Bocastle ; William Vanderwent-whose names
are doubtless all misspelt in the record.
The ? napery ? on this occasion was provided by
the Lord Provost, and the musicians, ? fydlerk at the
bankit,? as it is written in the Lord High Treasurer?s
accounts, were paid for by him. He had also to
pay ?for furnessing fyftene fedder beddis to the
Densis (Danes) within the palice of Halierudhous.?
Murdoch?s Close, a gloomy old cul-de-sac, lay
between this alley and Skinner?s Close, at the head
of which was the town house of the Earls of Leven.
The last who resided in Edinburgh, David, sixth
Earl, who was born in 1722, and who was wont,
High Street.] THE ROYAL MINT. 267
Fortune?s tavern, removed from Skinner?s Close to
a house at the north-west corner of Nicolson
Square, and latterly at No. 2, St. Andrew Square
(now the London Hotel), where he died, in his
eightieth year, in ISOZ.
In his lordship?s time the office of Commissioner
to the Church, which he held from 1783 to 1801, was
attended with more ?pomp and circumstance?
Treasurer, under date February, 1562-3 :-
? Item, allowit to the carpenter, be payment maid
to Johne Achesoun, Maister Congreave, to Maister
William M?Dowgale, Maister of Werk, for expensis
maide be him vpon the bigging of the Cwnge-house,
within the castell of Edinburgh, and beting of the
qvnge-hous within the Palice of Halierud-house,
fra the xi. day of Februar, 1559, zens, to the
Comniissioner proceeded on foot, escorted by his
guard of honour.
South Gray?s, or the Mint Close, was one of the
stateliest alleys in the old city, and herein stood the
Cunzie flous, as the Scottish Mint was named
(after its removal from near Holyrood in Queen
Mary?s time) till the Union in 1707, and until lately
its sombre and massive tower of finely polished
ashlar projecting into the narrow thoroughfare of
Cowgate, for three hundred and four years formed
one of the leading features of the latter, and to the
last the old edifice retained many traces of the important
operations that once went on within its
walls.
The first Mint House had been originally erected
in the outer court of the palace of Holyrood, somewhere
near the Horse Wynd, fromwhence, for greater
safety, it was removed to the castle, in which a new
Mint House had been built in 1559, as shown by
edifices of the period,? says Wilson, describing
the edifice prior to its removal. ?The whole
building was probably intended, when completed,
to form a quadrangle, surrounded on every side by
the same substantial walls, well suited for defence
against any ordinary assault, while its halls were
lighted from the enclosed court. The small windows
in this part of the building remain in their
original state, being divided by an oaken transom,
and the under part closed by a pair of folding
shutters. The massive ashlar walls are relieved
by ornamental stringcourses, and surmounted by
crowsteps of the earliest form and elegant proportions.
. . . . The internal marks of former
magnificence are more interesting than their external
ones, notwithstanding the humble uses to
which the buildings have latterly been applied ;
in particular some portions of a very fine oak
ceiling still remain, wrought in Gothic panelling,
