Edinburgh Bookshelf

Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI

Search

Leith.] THE KANTORE. 22s Session must have been determined to make it a sort of pattern parish for the whole kingdom. Not content with the by no means inconsiderable amount of zeal they displayed, they also had the assistance of a dignitary styled the Bailie of St. Anthony, whose special duty it was to ferret out ~~ the last of whom was abolished by the Reform Bill. In those clays we are told that to cut a cabbage, to boil a kett!e, or to wander in the streets during the hoursof sermon,rendered a person liable to arrest by a military patro1,and incarceration in the Kantore. TOLBOOTH WYND. transgressors against ecclesiastical authority, and have them brought before him for trial.? That the Session considered him their own special official is made evident from the circumstance that when the sheriff of the county, in the year 1688, ventured to dispute his authority aiid question his decisions, the Session passed a vote commanding their ?treasurer to disburse what money was necessary to defend the rights of this official, 126 In the centre of the edifice was an archway, and above it was a chamber, which, by order of the Session in 1632, was repaired for the use of ?? the doctor (teacher) of the Grammar School.? In 1692 the same chamber was used as a Session House, during a dispute about the incumbency of the parish. In later times the lower chambers were used as a receptacle for the gravedigger?s tools and the dkbris of the churchyard, in which latter, in the
Volume 6 Page 226
  Shrink Shrink   Print Print