Canonmills.] THE ROYAL GYMNASIUM. 87
to search for and seize them for his own use.
Hunter also prosecuted him for throwing his wife
into the mill-lade and using opprobrious language,
for which he was fined 650 sterling, and obliged
to find caution.
A hundred years later saw a more serious tumult
in Canonmills.
In 1784 there was a great scarcity of food in
Edinburgh, on account of the distilleries, which
were said by some to consume enormous quantities
of oatmeal and other grain unfermented, and
to this the high prices were ascribed. A large mob
proceeded from the town to Canonmills, and attacked
the great distillery of the Messrs. Haig
there j but meeting with an unexpected resistance
from the workmen, who, as the attack had been
expected, were fully supplied with arms, they retired,
but not until some of their number had been
killed, and the ?Riot Act? read by the sheriff,
Baron Cockburn, father of Lord Cockburn. TheiI
next attempt was on the house of the latter;
but on learning that troops had been sent for, they
desisted. In these riots, the mob, which assembled
by tuckof drum, was charged by the troops, and
several of the former were severely wounded.
These were the gth, or East Norfolk Regiment,
under the command of Colonel John Campbell 01
Blythswood, then stationed in the Castle.
During the height of the riot, says a little ?Histoq
of Broughton,? a private carriage passed through thc
village, and as it was said to contain one of thc
Haigs, it was stopped, amid threats and shouts
Some of the mob opened the door, as the bIindr
had been drawn, and on looking in, saw that th<
occupant was a lady; the carriage was therefore
without further interruption, allowed to proceed tc
its destination-Heriot?s Hill.
On the 8th of September subsequently, two of thf
rioters, in pursuance of their sentence, were whippei
through the streets of Edinburgh, and afterwards
transported for fourteen years.
In the famous ?Chaldee MS.,? chapter iv.
reference is made to ?a lean man who hath hi!
dwelling by the great pool to the north of the Nelr
City.? This was Mr. Patnck Neill, a well-knowr
citizen, whose house was near the Loch side.
In this quarter we now find the Patent Roya
Gymnasium, one of the most remarkable anc
attractive places of amusement of its kind in Edin
burgh, and few visitors leave the city without seeing
it. At considerable expense it was constructed bj
Mr. Cox of Gorge House, for the purpose of afford
ing healthful and exhilarating recreation in the ope1
air to great numbers at once, and in April, 1865
was publicly opened by the provosts, magistrates
tnd councillors of Edinburgh and Leith, accom-
?anied by all the leading inhabitants of the city and
:ounty.
Among the many remarkable contrivances here
was a vast ?rotary boat,? 471 feet in circumference,
seated for 600 rowers ; a ? giant see-saw,? named
I? Chang,? IOO feet long and seven feet broad, supported
on an axle, and capable of containing zoo
?ersons, alternately elevating them to a height of
ifty feet, and then sinking almost to the ground;
i ? velocipede paddle merry-go-round,? 160 feet
in Circumference, seated for 6co persons, who propel
the machine by sitting astride on the rim, and
push their feet against the ground ; a ? self-adjust-
Lng trapeze,? in five series of three each, enabling
gymnasts to swing by the hands 130 feet from one
trapeze to the other; a ?compound pendulum
swing,? capable of holding about IOO persons, and
kept in motion by their own exertions.
Here, too, are a vast number of vaulting and
climbing poles, rotary ladders, stilts, spring-boards,
quoits, balls, bowls, and little boats and canoes on
ponds, propelled by novel and amusing methods.
In winter the ground is prepared for skaters on a
few inches of frozen water, and when lighted up at
night by hundreds of lights, the scene, with its
musical accessories, is one of wonderful brightness,
gaiety, colour, and incessant motion.
Here, also, is an athletic hall, with an instructor
always in attendance, and velocipedes, with the
largest training velocipede course in Scotland. The
charges of admission are very moderate, so as to
meet the wants of children as well as of adults.
A little eastward of this is a large and handsome
school-house, built and maintained by the congregation
of St. Mary?s Church. A great Board
School towers up close by. Here, too, was Scotland
Street Railway Station, and the northern entrance
of the longsince disused tunnel underground to
what is now called ~e Waverley Station at Princes
Street.
A little way northward of Canonmills, on the
north bank of the Water of Leith, near a new bridge
of three arches, which supersedes one of considerable
antiquity, that had but one high arch, is the
peculiar edifice known as Tanfield Hall. It is an
extensive suite of buildings, designed, it has been
said, to represent a Moorish fortress, but was erected
in 1825 as oil gasworks, and speedily turned to
other purposes. In 1835 it was the scene of a
great banquet, given by his admirers to Daniel
O?Connell; and in 1843 of the constituting of the
first General Assembly of the Free Church, when
the clergy first composing it quitted in a body the
Establishment,as described in our account of George
88 OLD AND NEW
Street; and till 1856 the annual sittings of the Free
Assembly were held in it.
Here, too, in 1847, it witnessed the constituting
of the Synods of the Secession and Relief Churches
into the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church
of Scotland.
Old Canonmills House, which faced Fettes Row,
has been removed, and on its site was erected,
in 1880-1, a handsome United Presbyterian Church
within a crescent.
In the month of October, 1879, there was laid
at Bellevue Crescent, by the Lord Provost (Sir
Thomas Boyd), in presence of a vast concourse
of people, the foundation stone of a handsome
German church-the first of its kind in Scotlandfor
the congregation of Hem Blumenreich, which
for a number of years preceding had been wont to
meet in the Queen Street Hall. The Provost
was presented with a silver trowel wherewith to
lay the stone. Tie cost was estimated at &2,600.
The building was designed by Mr. Wemyss,
architect, Leith, in the Pointed Gothic style, for
350 sitters.
Where now Claremont Terrace andBellevueStreet
zre erected in Broughton Park, there existed,
EDINBURGH. [Canonmills.
between 1840 and 1867, the Zoological Gardens
(a small imitation of the old Vauxhall Gardens in
London), where the storming of Lucknow and other
such scenes of the Indian mutiny used to be nightly
represented, the combatants being parties of soldiers
from the Castle, the fortifications and so forth
being illuminated transparencies. Unfortunately or
otherwise the gardens proved a failure. Among
the last animals here were two magnificent tigers,
sent from India by the then Governor-General, the
?Marquis of Dalhousie, and afterwards, we believe,
transmitted to the Zoological Gardens in London.
Here, too, was Wood?s Victoria Hall, a large
timber-built edifice for musical entertainments,
which was open till about 1857.
Eastward of old Broughton Hall here, and bordering
on the old Bonnington Road, are various little
properties and quaint little mansion-houses, such
as Powderhall, Redbraes, Stewartfield, Bonnington
House, and Pilrig, some of them situated where
the Leith winds under wooded banks and past little
nooks that are almost sylvan still-and each of
these has. its own little history or traditions.
Powderhall, down in a dell, latterly the property
of Colonel Macdonald, in 1761 was the residence
