exasperated people.
In the days of its declension, the Darien House
was abandoned to the uses of a lunatic asylum for
the paupers of the adjoining workhouse. South of
it stood a square edifice, which was latterly used for
the same purpose. In the early part of the
eighteenth century this was the mansion house of
a wealthy quaker, named Buntin (or Bontein), whose
THE CHARITY WORKHOUSE, 1820. (Afrrr SfOrCr)
occupied by several blocks of new buildings, in
making the excavations for which the labourers
found that nearly the whole area had been an
ancient and forgotten cemetery, the bones and
coffins in which lay at an average depth of six feet
below the surface.
The first Merchant Maiden Hospital was built
in 1707, on the east side of Bristo Street ; and in
Mally." To see her leave the meeting-house in
the Pleasance, all the bucks and gay fellows of
the city were wont to crowd ; but from her father's
house, at Bristo (in its last years a dispensary), she
eloped with Mr. Craig, the minister of Currie, in
the churchyard of which her tombstone still
remains.
To this latter house, as a Bedlam, a peculiarly
melancholy interest attached, as it was there
that Robert Fergusson, the iil-fated poet, died a
raving lunatic in his twenty-fourth year, in 1774,
after a contusion received by a fall down-stairs; and
when his last hours came, his piteous shrieks for his
"mother" often rang out upon the night. This
house was removed,about the same time as the
living in Denham's Land, in the same thoroughfare.
This peer was one who carried the follies
and fantastic vices of the age to such an extravagant
length as led people to doubt his sanity. During
the lifetime of his father, Earl Archibald, he had
been frequently a debtor in the Tolbooth, and on
the 28th January, 1726, was incarcerated there for
" deforcement, not, and spulzie."
In 1739 there occurs in the public journals a
singular advertisement, issued by this ornament to
the Scottish peerage, relative to the elopement of
one Polly Rich, who had been engaged by him for
a year. She is described as being about eighteen
five feet six inches high, '' fine-shap'd, blue-ey'd,
with black hair or nut-brown; all her linnen or
THE OLD WORKHOUSE. 325 Bristo Street.]
cambrick ? bears the earl?s coronet above his
initial R. Three guineas? reward was offered for
any one who would return Polly ?to her owner,?
either at John?s Coffee House, ?or the Earl of
Rosebeme at Denham?s Land, Bristow, and no
questions will be asked. She is a London girl,
and what they call a Cockney.? There are in
the advertisement a great many arguments and
inducements used by the earl to induce the fair
was a park called Forglens Park, upon part of
which the New Bridge is built,? says a writer in
1775, ?and the rest feued out by the magistrates
to different persons, upon which there are now
many good houses erected This park used to
pay AI o yearly.?
At midsummer, in 1743, this house was opened
for the reception of the poor, who were employed
according to their ability, and allowed twopence
DARIEN HOUSE, 1750.
one to return, and the whole are wound up by the
following elegant couplet :-
? My Lord desires Polly Rich,
To mind on Lord Roseberrie?s dear little Fish.?
(Scottish/ournal, Vol. I.)
Westward of Bristo Street, in the large open field
described, there was erected in 1743 the Workhouse.
It was four storeys in height, very spacious, but plain,
massive, and dingy, with a pedimented or gabled
centre, whereat hung a huge bell, and in which
there were three tall arched windows of the chapel
or hall. It stood zoo feet south-west of the Bristo
Port, on a part of the ground then denominated
the High Riggs, and the expense of the edifice was
defrayed by the voluntary contributions of the
inhabitants ; and for its use, ?among other subjects,
out of every shilling they earned. The annual
expense of maintaining each person in those days
amounted to A4 IOS., and was defrayed by a tax
of two per cent. on the valued rents of the city, the
dues of the dead, or the passing bell, burial
warrants, green turfs, half the profits of the Ladies?
Assembly Room, the collections at the church
doors, and other voluntary contributions. It was
early proposed to establish a permanent poor rate,
but this was opposed by the members of the College
of Justice, on the plea that they were not liable to
local burdens.
The number maintained in this now defunct
edifice from the 1st of January, 1777, to the 1st
of January, 1778, was only 484 adults, of both
sexes, of whom 52 died; 180 children, of whom
