Rambles in and around Dundee - Hogmanay 1863.

[Currie]

From The Dundee Courier & Argus, Tuesday, January 05, 1864.

RAMBLES IN AND AROUND DUNDEE.
(By our Special Reporter.)
NEW YEAR TIME IN THE STREETS.

At certain seasons of the year our public thoroughfares put on an abnormally gay aspect. At the Fair the High Street especially is as interesting to the true Dundonian as is the Corso at Carnival time to the pleasure-loving Roman. There is as much confectionery used on our popular promenade as in the glittering Italian Avenue; but the Dundonian makes a better use of it than the Roman. The former, with true northern caution, keeps his "sweeties" for domestic consumption; while the latter, with the warm impulsiveness of the sunny south, flings them prodigally in the bystanders or the passerbys' faces. At the Fair time the demeanour of the frequenters of the High Street is almost puritanical in its decorousness, when compared with the mad freaks the Romans indulge in at the Carnival. That there is, however, a strong vein of excitement in the northern character let the sober spectator make proof of by frequenting the High Street of Dundee on a Hogmanay night. As last Thursday night, we found ourselves, between eleven and twelve, approaching the High Street, amid an exasperating drizzle of rain, the thought of a popular expression, current in Paris during the first revolution, stole across our mind. When the weather was wet, a whisper used to run through the Faubourg St Antoine, "There will be nothing done to-night," and in our ignorance of the persistency with which those who are fond of "first-footing" will in all weathers cling to the custom, we imagined that the grand meeting-place of the perambulating bottle-holders would be almost deserted.

We were greatly disappointed, for the oblong promenade was thickly crowded with noisy groups of men, women, and boys. It was very amusing to circulate among them, and hear the schemes for the night's procedure which were being suggested. Some methodical individuals were earnestly impressing on erratic companion the necessity of visiting certain friends in the enter of locality, while the impulsive beings on whom the impression was desired, could not see the force of that, and stuck to their own plan of taking the houses to be visited according to the strength of friendship which they (the erratic ones) entertained for the tenant. Then other groups would he comparing their alcoholic stock. A few had bottles of brandy, and these were the cynosure and envy of these who could only boast a pint of whisky or a bottle of ramshrub, or the comparatively innocuous ginger-wine. Whisky was, however, the favourite beverage with which to treat those who were doomed to be knocked up, in order to enjoy the questionable pleasure of first-footing, for surely there is not much enjoyment in staying out of bed three or four hours after midnight in order to receive the maudlin salutations of inebriated youths, who would be much better under the influence of Morpheus than that of Bacchus. Some sanguine spirits were planning excursions for the morrow; but it was evident, from the earnestness with which they were bent on making a night of it, that never would that morrow those excursions see. A splitting headache and a double-strong seidlitz powder were decidedly the most likely distractions of the holiday to those young gentlemen.

As twelve o'clock drew near, the crowd thickened, and some of the new corners had evidently so well prepared themselves for their night's work, that the Police Office was likely to be the first building they would “first foot." It must not, however, he supposed that all the first footers were fired with drink, or prepared to dispense it to those they honoured with a call. Many were as sober as a Chancery Judge; and if we might judge from their conversation, the extent of their deference to the popular superstition of going full-handed to a friend's house, was limited to a packet of mixtures, or a bagful of "Sweet Sevilles.” Let those youths go timely home after their midnight visits, and they will enjoy with double zest their holiday to-morrow. At last, the town clock peals out the midnight hour, and a universal cheer from the many rends the skies. In a couple of minutes, the street was almost deserted, and an imaginative man might well indulge in the fancy that the noisy multitude he saw before him shortly before was an assemblage of imps, which had suddenly vanished at the command of a potent enchanter.

As we have no mission to follow the youths on their convivial tour, we will shift the scene, and present the streets in the day time. Throughout the forenoon, afternoon, and evening, the principal thoroughfares are unusually full of pedestrians all clad in their best. The High Street is, of course, the most densely thronged, for in addition to numbers of "drouthy neebors” greeting "neebors" as "drouthy" as themselves, there are, it being market day, the usual concourse of agricultural gentlemen. We suspect, however, that there is more talk than business, and that handshaking, and happy new-yearing, are at the expense of bargains decidedly in the ascendant. The High Street, which is in its conformation remarkably like the High Street of Whitechapel, London, has to-day a wonderful resemblance to that metropolitan thoroughfare of a Sunday. Here and there an open shop is to be seen, but the majority of the marts are hard and fast, their proprietors making holiday by necessity.

A good many pedestrians have been partaking rather too freely of the cup that cheers and also inebriates, some are noisily drunk and quite frantic in their congratulations to the people they meet. Others arc stolidly drunk, and move along with vacant and lack-lustre eyes. Others may be described as contemplatively drunk, for as they slowly stoiter along, they keep their eyes fixed on the ground, as if they were looking for pearls of great price. Ever and anon these worthies make a sudden pause as if they were about to stop and seize some treasure trove, but they usually think better of it, and blunder on, crooning to themselves as they go. Some are belligerently drunk, and have in their voice, their face, and their attitude a devil-me-care who’ll-tread-on-the-tail-of-my-coat knockdown tone and expression. Most of the passers-by are, however, sober, and earnestly bent on enjoying themselves in a rational way; and justice prompts us to say that the prosperity which has blessed the working-classes during the past year has not been productive of the amount of alcoholic excess at the New Year time which might have been expected. The scenes observed on Saturday were strikingly similar to those on Friday, with the exception that those in the belligerent state of inebriety were rather more numerous.

One inebriate who looked like a cross between a returned whale-fisher and a carter, took up his stand in the Cowgate at an early hour in the afternoon, and from that period until darkness set in, kept up a series of desultory combats with everybody who was foolish enough to mind his truculent insolence. So offensive was this beast's conduct that the mildest bystander would willingly have given half-a-crown to see him thrashed to his heart's content. There was method, too in his fighting madness, for whenever a policeman hove in sight, he "skedaddled," but only to return when the coast was clear to display his Donnybrook proclivities all over again. In the aspect of the streets on Saturday evening, if we except the riotous behaviour of some of the intoxicated fools who had been spending what they called a "a rael happy noo eer," there was nothing beyond what is usually to be seen, and all things considered we are inclined to say that the present New Year has passed over with a decorum which, to our mind, is indicative of an amelioration of manners in the lower strata of Dundee society.


Hope that’s nostalgic,
Alan

[Corsebar]

Well Alan, as usual from you another interesting article.
They certainly knew how to write in those days. Think we've got lazy and don't read enough litreature nowadays. The story certainly had me stretching for the dictionary a couple of times for the meaning of some of the words, which I felt no shame in doing so. You don't seem to hear or see some of these words now.
Happy New Year
Ray

[Russell]

Hi Alan

Things haven't really changed have they, except that the young gather in ever greater numbers in Princes street and other towns for the free entertainment provided. Their choice of booze may have changed but the effects haven't changed. I loved the description of the after effects. We have all met the maudlin drunk, the belligerent drunk, the quietly staggering, determined to get home if he could only remember where home was
The writer seemed to have been far travelled with good knowledge of both London and Rome yet completely at home in Dundee amongst his ain folk.
Keep finding these gems. they give fantastic insights into the social conditions at the time - as well as being a great read

Russell

[Currie]

Hello Ray & Russell,

I checked the dictionary a couple of times myself. I wasn’t too sure about ‘amelioration’ in the last sentence, but it seems the lower strata’s manners were improving.

There’s a reference in the second paragraph to a ‘bottle of ramshrub’. It’s probably the same as one of these recipes if anyone wants to mix one up. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ylk ... ub&f=false

There seems to have been much more rambling done in Dundee, compared to Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, at least in the old newspapers. Here’s another much earlier ramble, this time up Henderson’s Wynd, where the ramblers meet a poor old Irishwoman. It’s from the Dundee Courier, Wednesday, July 18, 1849.


RAMBLES THROUGH DUNDEE.
THE WARDS—HENDERSON'S WYND.

PASSING on in our ramble, we soon become lost in the maze of narrow lanes, and deafened by the sound of machinery which meets us at every corner, issuing from the half-opened windows of mills and machine shops, accompanied by clouds of dust and smoke. This quarter of the town is almost entirely occupied by mills, founderies, brick works, and tan-yards—scarcely one dwelling-house is to be met with from Scott's tan-yard in the west to the extensive buildings of Dudhope Crescent in the east, which in the distance rises like some huge castle. From the level appearance of the Wards, as this mill region is called, and the nature of the soil, chiefly a fine clay, we believe that at some remote date the whole must have been covered with water, which, by the natural rising of the land combined with the efforts of surrounding proprietors by draining, has long since ceased to exist. But we do not intend tiring the reader with suppositions which we have no opportunity, farther than simple appearances, of settling. Let us then turn from this California of Dundee to some of the haunts of misery and wretchedness we have yet to visit.

We are just entering a region which, last winter, gained the unenviable name of the "Valley of Death,"—a name but too appropriate from the dreadful ravages of typhus fever among its poverty-stricken inhabitants. The place is comprised within Henderson's Wynd, Malcolm's Pend, and Horsewater Wynd, and is principally inhabited by poor Irish families, engaged in the surrounding mills. Perhaps in no part of Dundee does such a collection of miserable hovels present themselves as in this locality, or a greater degree of poverty appear than in the dirty, meanly-clothed population. We will walk up Henderson's Wynd—of the three above mentioned lanes the worst. On the west side of the lane, a narrow patch of ground before the houses, in which, at unequal distances, stand solitary posts, belonging to some rude paling, speaks of the green kail-yard of other days when these same tenements were occupied by townspeople who loved to cultivate their little garden of vegetables, embellished perhaps with a few sprigs of Sweet William, Thyme, and Peppermint, for a nosegay on the Sunday morning. Alas! for this good old Scottish custom, which used to ornament our suburbs with little gardens and clean, holy-looking dwellings. The potato-loving emigrants from the sister island who have taken possession of these places, have let the ground go to waste—their children have trampled down the fragrant herbs of the once-loved nook, and destroyed the fences for firewood. The windows—always small—once clean and cheerful, are now broken, dirty, and patched with brown paper, or filled where part of the pane is wanting, with the remains of old trousers or “pob” from the mill. The floors, which used to be so well washed and sanded, and the door steps which rejoiced in the sprightliness of pipe-clay, and told better than letters could blazoned above the door of the cleanliness and comfort within, are all gone, and filth, in all its darkness and deformity, has usurped their places.

However miserable the exterior of these abodes appear, there is generally to be found within a greater degree of disgusting inattention to the common forms of cleanliness. Here is one door wide open, and, reader, if your olfactory nerves, already inured to the pestiferous atmosphere of the “Valley of Death," can stand an increased effluvia, we will enter, and in this case you will discover in the condition of such places the cause which has attracted to this locality the destroying agent of death in all its most dreadful forms. “Good morrow, gintlemen," is heard from the smoke-begrimed lips of an old Irishwoman, who, half-seen through the cloud of smoke which intervenes between us and her place at the fire, at least makes a welcome to our visit. "Perhaps yez belongs to the Board of Health; sit down and rest yez. There's not a chair in the house, but this big stool can hold both yez, an’ sure, gintlemen, you'll maybe not find a claner little house in all Henderson's Wynd than this same." You smile, reader, as you cast your eyes round the bare, damp walls—on the cold, cheerless fire, which seems struggling for life among a few cinders—on the beds around the room, square boxes of unwrought wood, covered with rags, black with smoke and dust—on the cold mud floor—on the tapestry of the spider, hanging from the roof in long, heavy, dust laden folds—and your ideas of cleanliness are shocked by the seriously expressed belief of our hostess. “Are you long in this town, my good woman?” “Two years past last November, Sir." "To what part of Ireland do you belong?" “To the County Leitrim, plase yer honour, one of the purtiest parts ov all Ireland." “Is your husband with you in Dundee?" "My husband, Sur, my husband, pace to his soul, is in heaven," a tear for the memory of the dead marks its way down the smoke-covered face of the old woman, as the memory of past days is recalled by the question. “Oh, Sur, had my poor Teddy been alive it’s not in this strange country I would be seeking my bread. It’s myself that was the lone woman when I saw the turf laid above his grave in the ould Abbey of Drumahair, and whin I wint home to our little cabin …….[?]”. What occupation did your husband follow in Ireland?” “Why, Sur, he had a small bit of a farm there, we kept cows an’ pigs, an’ lived comfortably an’ easy for many years. Afther he died, I kept up the farm, but the rot came among the praties, the cows died, an’ the pigs took the maisles, an’, in less than three years afther I had closed the eyes of my poor Teddy, I was turned out of my little farm, without a pound note in the world, afther getting everything seized by the landholder for the rint. I have two sons in Ameriky, but whether they are dead or alive goes agin me to tell. There was none of my neighbours able to help me. I could not stay longer there, an', with the few shillings I had, I begged my way to Belfast, where tuk a passage in the steamer for Scotland, an’ now here I am, keepin' this house for mill girls, an' thankful to God for his mercy to my poor self."

Such, reader, is the unvarnished tale of this poor woman, and many such could be heard from those who have left their own beautiful country—beautiful, in spite of its fulness of pauperism and misery—for this, adding their weight of demi-civilization to the descending scale of its morals, and their wants to the already unbearable weight of its poor laws.



All the best,
Alan

[Russell]

These recipes for punch and what we would now call cocktails are amazing. Take a gallon of this and two quarts of that (all strong spirits !) No wonder future governments seized on the opportunity to heavily tax wine and spirit sales. Better than the gold crock at the end of the rainbow Now they mix minute quantities with cracked ice, call it a cocktail and charge exorbitant prices. The original recipes sound good but where would you buy 'essence of spruce' these days.

Charles Dickens didn't have a monopoly on good clear description of the social condition either but I can't recall him ever including the flavour of an Irish accent in his stories. There was some sympathy for the plight of the Irish but also concern for the effects of the Parish support system. Very subtle writing.

Russell

[Corsebar]

Well ,what can I say!
Thought i was sitting in that poor old Irish womans house listening to her in the way that the author put it over. The state of the domain in great detail, Irish accent of the old lady as heard by a Scotsman in those days, very detailed account.
Was particularly interested in the herb Sweet William in one of the passages, didn't know it was a herb. Is that the one that always stuck to your clothes when you touched it?
Perhaps some of our learned TS members can answer this one, would be interested to hear comments. It was known as Sweet William ,perhaps after William of Orange (don't know myself) to the Presbyterians. However, to the non Presbyterians (perhaps Catholics) was called Stinkin Billy.
Thank you
Ray

[LesleyB]

There is still a West Hendersons Wynd in Dundee and indeed it was an area of mills- there is still one mill extant there, Verdant Works, which is a museum and well worth a viist if you are in the area:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdant_Works
http://www.museumsgalleriesscotland.org ... dant-works

[AndrewP]

... Was particularly interested in the herb Sweet William in one of the passages, didn't know it was a herb. Is that the one that always stuck to your clothes when you touched it?
Perhaps some of our learned TS members can answer this one, would be interested to hear comments. It was known as Sweet William ,perhaps after William of Orange (don't know myself) to the Presbyterians. However, to the non Presbyterians (perhaps Catholics) was called Stinkin Billy.

The Wikipedia article about Sweet William refers to it being herbal, and some possible medicinal properties of the flowers. It also lists a number of possibilities of the origins of the name, and makes reference to "Stinking Billy". Make what you will of that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianthus_barbatus

All the best,

AndrewP