Part 17

The magistrates, in that age a convivial set of men, delighted to assemble in the “Magistrates’ Room,” and their capacity for drinking deep may be judged from the size of the famous punch-bowl of the establishment, which held five gallons. Adorned with the City arms, it was usually brought in, shoulder-high, by the landlord himself, and with great ceremony placed before the Chairman and the magistrates, who were probably themselves carried home at a later stage of the session, or left sleeping off the effects under the table. The bowl has for many years been lost sight of. Last seen in 1860, it is believed to be no longer in existence.

The “Saracen’s Head” building finally disappeared in 1904.

The “Black Bull,” second only to the “Saracen’s Head,” was built close by the West Port, in Argyle Street, in 1758, and took its name from an old inn on the opposite side of the road, kept at that time by James Graham, who afterwards acquired the “Saracen’s Head.” The building of the “Black Bull” was a shrewd speculation of the Highland Society, which in 1757 purchased the freehold site for £260 11_s._ 6_d._ It contained twenty-three bedrooms, and six reception rooms, and was provided with an ample sufficiency of cellars: six in number. For a number of years the rent appears to have been £100 per annum. By 1788, it had risen to £140, and under a nineteen-years’ lease from 1789 to 1808 was £245. In 1825, when shops were made on the ground-floor, the combined rental of shops and hotel had risen to £1,168; by which it would appear that the Highland Society had secured full measure and brimming over from its investment of £260 in 1757.

The year 1849 saw the closing of the “Black Bull,” when it was converted into a drapery establishment. The building stands at the corner of Virginia Street, and is now occupied by Messrs. Mann, Byars & Co.

[Sidenote: _THE “TONTINE”_]

Later in date, and more advanced in comforts, was the “Tontine Hotel,” built originally as the Glasgow Exchange, in 1781-2. With the advantage of a central position, at the Cross, it eventually became the foremost hotel in Glasgow. It was leased to one “Mr. Smart” in 1784, as an hotel; a coffee-house and imposing reading-rooms forming important adjuncts.

The arrival of the London newspapers at the Tontine Reading Rooms was in the old days the signal for riotous excitement. Immediately on receiving the bag of papers from the Post Office, the waiter locked himself up in the bar. After he had sorted the different papers and had made them up in a heap, he unlocked the door and, making a sudden rush into the middle of the room, tossed up the whole heap as high as the ceiling. Then came an irresistible rush and scramble of subscribers, every one darting forward to lay hold of a paper. Sometimes a lucky and agile fellow would secure five or six and run off into a corner, to select his favourite: always hotly pursued by half a dozen of the disappointed scramblers, who without ceremony snatched away the first they could lay hold of, regardless of its being torn in the contest. On those occasions a heap of gentlemen could often be seen sprawling on the floor and climbing over one another’s backs, like so many schoolboys.

The name of the hotel derived from the financial, lottery-like principle of the tontine, by which the building funds were raised.

One hundred and seven shares of £50 each were subscribed in 1781; the interest upon the investment being paid at regular intervals, and the property gradually devolving, as the members of the tontine died, upon the survivors; the lessening number of the persons to share out increasing _pro rata_ the value of the survivors’ holding.

The “Tontine Hotel” ceased to be an hotel many years ago, and is now the warehouse of Messrs. Moore, Taggart & Co.

XXXVI

Here, then, we are come to the end of this long journey, into the roaring, overcrowded streets of modern Glasgow.

I shall not attempt to describe the Glaswegian: there are so many varieties of him. Nor his accent, which evades characterisation. The Londoner, accustomed to think his own city busy and crowded, will find, on coming to Glasgow, that he has still something to learn about congested streets. Let him, for example, resort to the Central station of the Caledonian Railway (the whistles of whose Prussian-blue-painted engines have an accent of their own) and he shall see a high tide of life new to him.

As for ancient Glasgow, I know not where to bid you look for it, unless it be in the Cathedral, and that is ancient indeed. The rest is very new, yet very grey and gloomy, for the immense commercial interests of Glasgow have not only compelled the extension of the city, but also the complete rebuilding of its centre, and have caused it to be rebuilt exclusively in stone. The chief streets are of stone, are paved with stone, and have remarkably tall buildings, and so with the side streets: the sole difference being that while the principal thoroughfares contain the shops, every side street leading out of them is a more or less dirty slum, where dirty little bare-legged, ragged-tailed boys and girls play in the road or spit out of windows on the passing stranger. I suppose the respectable people do their business in the city, and live outside it.

There is no colour in Glasgow, which, when once you are out of the noise and bustle of the business streets, is thus a very depressing place; and I think the Scotsman’s praise, “Man, ye should live in Glesca’, there’s such gran’ faceelities for gettin’ oot o’t,” must have taken unconscious count of this.

In one way, and one only, Glasgow resembles London. This is in the way in which the Clyde divides it, north and south. North, you have old Glasgow and its immediate extensions; south are the dependent districts of Hutchesontown, Laurieston, Gorbals, Govanhill, and a dozen others.

[Sidenote: _SAINT KENTIGERN_]

The Clyde and the neighbourhood of the Lanarkshire coalfield are the determining factors that have made Glasgow what it is, yet although its wealth and size are of modern growth, it is no parvenu, upstart place without a history. St. Kentigern, or St. Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow, came here so early as A.D. 543, but early as he was, Glasgow was already here, in the guise of one hamlet on the Molendinar Burn, where the Cathedral now stands, and another nearer the Clyde.

And here, with this mention of St. Kentigern, it is necessary for awhile to divert the stream of historical narrative into the interesting backwater of saintly biography, and thus learn the story of how the city came by its singular armorial bearings.

Kentigern, the founder of the see, was born in A.D. 518, or 527, and was by birth a by no means humble person, having been the son of Ewen ap Urien, a prince of Strathclyde, and of Thenewth, daughter of Loth, King of Northumbria. Kentigern was born at Culross, where, as a youth, he entered the Church, under the guidance and protection of St. Serf, the old Bishop of Culross, who showed great affection for him, and used to style him, intimately, “Munchu,” a nickname said to derive from words signifying “dear, well-mannered little fellow.” Kentigern was not only urbane, but pious as well, and early of such holiness as to be able to perform miracles. The first of these was the bringing again to life a pet robin belonging to his patron, which had been accidently killed by other lads in the monastery, who laid the blame of the accident on him. Taking the dead bird in his hand, and making the sign of the Cross, it revived, and flew off, chirping, to its master.

The next miracle was exhibited to reprove his mischievous young companions, who, seeing him fall asleep over a consecrated fire which it was his duty to attend, extinguished it. Kentigern merely, when he awoke, went outside and found a frozen hazel branch which he breathed upon, in the name of the Trinity, whereupon it burst into flame.

The precocious sanctity and the amazing miracles of Kentigern so impressed St. Serf—as well they might—that when the cook attached to the monastery died suddenly at harvest time and the reapers were returning to a dinner that had not been prepared, the Bishop merely gave him the choice of cooking the dinner, or raising the cook from the dead. Whatever else Kentigern was, he was no _chef_, and so did the easiest thing for him to perform, and resurrected the cook, who was doubtless grateful: but probably not so grateful as the reapers, who narrowly escaped having their dinner spoilt.

But these were not his most celebrated exploits; and were mere side-shows compared with the famous adventure of the Queen of Cadzow, which he saved from becoming a tragedy. It seems that the King of Strathclyde had given his consort a ring of great price and singular beauty, but she in turn presented it to a knight with whom she was on terms of peculiar friendship. As ill-fortune would have it, the King espied it on the knight’s finger, and, indignant that his gift should have been passed on, snatched it off and flung it into the Clyde. He then, saying nothing of what had happened, asked her for it. She made a temporary excuse, and in distress turned to Kentigern, who listened patiently, and then instructed her to cause a fishing-line to be cast into the river, when the first fish hooked would be found to have the missing ring in his stomach.

The line was cast, the fish caught, and the ring duly found and returned to the King, who was thus completely hoodwinked. Our sympathies are rather with the King, over this business, than with the Queen, or the saint, who does not seem to have been able to withstand a woman’s tears or the desire of showing-off; even though it were in a questionable cause.

But he was equal to any emergency. Preaching once to a great crowd, to whom he was almost inaudible and invisible, owing to the flatness of the ground he stood on, he caused a mound to grow up beneath his feet, and prophesied that Glasgow should rise as the mound had done.

Finally he died in A.D. 603, and was buried on the site where Glasgow Cathedral stands.

[Sidenote: _THE ARMS OF GLASGOW_]

The arms of Glasgow illustrate many of these stories, but were not adopted until toward the close of the sixteenth century, the earliest representation of them being found sculptured over the entrance to the Tron Kirk, and dated 1592. They were heraldically formulated in modern times, and, in the language of heralds, are: “Argent, on a mount in base, an oak-tree proper: the stem and bole thereof surmounted by a salmon on its back, also proper, with a signet-ring in its mouth, or; on top of the tree a redbreast, and on the sinister fess point an ancient bell, both also proper”: the bell referring to one he is said to have brought from Rome. The crest includes a half-length of the saint, in the act of benediction, and the supporters are two salmon.

Although the arms are modern, the same, or similar, devices appeared upon the common seal of Glasgow from an early period: the mound, however, being a comparatively recent addition, necessitated by the hazel branch having become, by some unexplained species of evolution, an oak tree. The earliest representation of the mound is said to be that shown on the bell of Tron Kirk, which also first exhibits the famous Glasgow motto, which, in its original and unexpurgated form: “Lord, let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the Word and praising Thy name,” is to be found over the entrance to Blackfriars Church.

The theological and missionary complexion of this aspiration was completely obscured in 1699, when the abbreviated form was first used as the city motto: the inference, to satirical minds, now being “Let Glasgow Flourish—by all means.”

Popular disbelief in these miraculous things is expressed in the lines:

This is the tree that never sprang, This is the bird that never sang, This is the bell that never rang, This is the fish that never swam.

St. Enoch Church, built in 1780, and the St. Enoch terminus both, in a way, owe their names to Kentigern. St. Enoch is a name you will not find in the hierarchy of saints. There was never any such person, the name being merely a corruption of that of Thenewth, the mother of Kentigern.

The Cathedral itself is dedicated to Kentigern, under the pet name given him by St. Serf.

[Sidenote: _THE CATHEDRAL_]

St. Mungo’s Cathedral, standing on the site where, by the “Glas-coed,” or “dark wood” of the original settlement, the saint erected his wooden mission church some thirteen hundred and fifty years ago, is the successor of several buildings that have been erected on the spot, and in its present form dates from what we are accustomed to style the Early English period of the mid-thirteenth century. It consists of nave, 155 feet in length, and choir of 97 feet; with aisles, Lady Chapel, and Chapter House; while the crypt beneath the choir is one of the most striking features of the building.

Occupying the highest point in Glasgow, the Cathedral was in olden days in midst of very beautiful scenery, but in these times it is surrounded by the poorest quarters and although it commands views of some extent, they are only of roofs and chimneys and of the once pretty hillside now thickly set with the larger or smaller monuments of the cemetery called the “Necropolis.” The old Molendinar Burn that ran in the hollow between the Cathedral and that crowded Golgotha was long ago covered up and its course converted into a road spanned by the bridge leading into the cemetery, called the “Bridge of Sighs.” Prominent above all other monuments on that stricken hill is the tall column crowned by an effigy of John Knox. The Cathedral Yard itself is a dismal place. There, forming a close paving, are the memorials of many of Glasgow’s departed citizens: the stones broken and mangy: merchants jostling cock-lairds and dunghill squires with their heraldic achievements weathered in most cases almost beyond recognition; and one of those ferocious denunciatory Covenanters’ monuments with which every visitor to Scotland soon becomes familiar.

They’ll know, at Resurrection Day, To murder Saints was no sweet play.

So runs the savage rhyme.

The Cathedral, in common with other such ecclesiastical buildings in Scotland, is maintained by the Office of Works, and is opened at ten o’clock in the morning by an uniformed official. It is black without and extremely dark within: the crypt, by reason of the darkness and the maze of pillars, being a place wherein the stranger is reduced to groping his way about. In short, a building of exquisite beauty, but dank and dark to a degree. A great deal of this darkness is caused by the bad, semi-opaque, highly coloured heraldic and other stained glass inserted half a century ago.

Glasgow has ever been proud of its Cathedral. Sir Walter Scott echoes this attitude in “Rob Roy,” where he makes Andrew Fairservice say: “A brave kirk—nane o’ yer whigmaleeries and curliewurlies and opensteek hems about it—a’ solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gunpowther aff it.”

It would have gone ill with this “solid, weel-jointed mason-wark” when the leaven of the Reformation was working, had not the Glaswegians, prouder of the building than of the religion for which it stood, presented a bold front against the fury of the surrounding townships and their own suburbs, eager to destroy it altogether. Again, in the words of Andrew Fairservice, “It wasna for love o’ paperie—na, na! nane could ever say that o’ the trades o’ Glasgow. Sae they sune came to an agreement to take a’ the idolatrous statues o’ sants (sorrow be on them) out o’ their neuks. And sae the bits o’ stane idols were broken in pieces by Scripture warrant, and flung into the Molendinar Burn, and the auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the fleas are kaimed off her, and a’body was alike pleased.”

[Sidenote: _CROMWELL_]

The Cathedral was then made to fulfil the needs of no fewer than three congregations: one meeting in the choir, another in the nave, and a third in the Laigh Kirk, or Low Church (_i.e._ the crypt). The ancient pile has not been without its dramatic moments, as when, in October 1650, Cromwell himself sat here, unmoved, with Mr. Secretary Thurlow, while a furious preacher, Dr. Zachary Boyd, emulating a like exploit of John Knox before Queen Mary, many years before, for two hours preached at him, as “Sectary and Blasphemer.”

“Shall I have him out by the ears and pistol him?” whispered Thurlow, his anger gaining the better of his lawyer instincts.

“No,” replied the man of force and arms, unwontedly, but roughly, diplomatic. “He’s a fool and you’re another: I’ll pay him out in his own coin.”

He invited Boyd to dinner, and after the meal offered up an exhausting prayer of three hours’ length. After this “like cures like” homœopathic treatment, Dr. Boyd crept home, dazed, to bed and nightmare: but it would surely have been more prettily exasperating had Cromwell prayed his three hours _before_ dinner.

The Cathedral Square abuts upon one of the most squalid neighbourhoods in Glasgow, but it is here that the oldest domestic building in the city stands. The stranger’s attention is first attracted to it by the legend, “Provand’s Lordship,” painted across the weathered stone frontage over the hairdresser’s shop that occupies part of the ground floor. Then, glancing at the high-pitched roof and the corbie-stepped gables, characteristic of old Scottish architecture, he will perceive that he is indeed contemplating a very reverend building. It was, in fact, originally erected during the episcopacy of Bishop Muirhead, 1455-73, as a manse for certain of the clergy of the Cathedral, and this portion of the building still exhibits a shield of the Bishop’s arms: three acorns, on a bend. In 1570, shortly after the Reformation had dispossessed the clergy of their properties, William Baillie, who had been granted the Provand’s Lordship lands and houses by Queen Mary in 1565, added the wing that now fronts upon the street. Here, in 1565, before that addition was made, the Queen stayed on her visit to Glasgow. The visitor, exploring the ancient and interesting, but miserably uncomfortable, rooms, will, more than ever, suspect that the goodness of the “good old days” is a myth.

[Sidenote: _PROVAND’S LORDSHIP_]

But why “Provand’s Lordship”? You might stand all day in the crowded Cathedral Square, and canvass all who passed; and yet no one would be able to tell you, unless indeed you happened upon one of the leading spirits of the “Provand’s Lordship Literary Club,” Dr. Robert B. Lothian, Messrs. R. H. Arnott, Thos. Lugton, and Jas. Murphy, who have just purchased the property.

According to those, and other, authorities, the house was in the first instance erected as a residence for the priest in charge of St. Nicholas’ Hospital, and afterwards became the residence of one of the Cathedral prebendaries—the Prebendary of Balarnock, whose prebend included a long strip of land extending from the Cathedral to Cowlairs and Provanhall, five miles away to the east, where the country-house of himself and those who succeeded him still stands. He was Lord of the Manor of Provan, and so were his secular successors. Thus “Provand’s Lordship,” a title Lord Rosebery, speaking in October 1907 at a dinner given by the “Provand’s Lordship Literary Club,” professed himself unable to understand. But what that sorry fugitive figure of political failure cannot comprehend is not, it will be seen, after all, so difficult of comprehension.

XXXVII

And now to revert to the secular story of Glasgow, which has been so long interrupted. The village had by 1136 become important enough for the site of the first Cathedral, and so through centuries it grew, retaining the reputation of being “an exceedingly beautiful little place” until the very dawn of the eighteenth century. It early stood for law and order, and preferred the Hanoverians to the Stuarts, both in the ’15 and the ’45: opposing the Old Pretender on the first occasion with 600 men, and Prince Charlie on the second with double that number. But the city was made to supply the rebels of 1745 with £5,000 in gold and £500 worth of munitions. Its population was then about 50,000. In 1768, when the modern commercial career of Glasgow may be said to have commenced, in the works for the deepening of the Clyde then undertaken, the inhabitants numbered about 70,000. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the figure had risen to 83,769, in 1851 to 360,000, and is now computed at close upon one million.

[Sidenote: _THE CLYDE_]

The commercial genius and the farsighted energy of the Scottish people have transformed what was the shallow, muddy estuary of the Clyde into a busy waterway second to none in the world. As a river, the Clyde has never counted for much, but as an estuary it has ever been of importance; an importance, however, sadly neutralised by the shoals that from the earliest known times obstructed the passage. Even in remote days Glasgow made attempts to clear the fairway, and in 1565 efforts were devoted to increasing the depth of the channel, and to correcting its course, “aimless in its wanderings, and dangerous with banks and quicksands.” But little was done, and in 1651 it was reported as every day more and more filling up. At that time no considerable vessel could approach nearer Glasgow than Dumbarton, fourteen miles distant, and the tonnage of the port was a mere 957 tons. This condition of affairs remained until 1740, when John Golborne, a Chester engineer, was employed to dredge and build jetties.

But in 1755, high-water at the Broomielaw still gave a depth of only five feet, and at low-water there were but eighteen inches. To-day, on the same spot, there is a twenty-five feet depth of water, and the largest ocean-going steamers lie off the crowded quays.

But there is no finality here. If there were, Glasgow would be thinking of shutting up shop. Dredging is still in progress, and the bottomless Loch Long still receives the resultant harvest of mud. Meanwhile, the revenue of the River Clyde Trust goes soaring up. One hundred and fifty years ago it was £1,500 per annum. In 1898 it was £430,000, and doubtless by now considerably exceeds half a million sterling. The Broomielaw, once, in a distant past, a wild waterside common where broom and heather flourished, is now a combination of Thames Street and Blackfriars, London, the resemblance heightened by the similarity of Glasgow Bridge and the lattice-girder railway-bridges to those spanning the Thames.

The beauty of these lower reaches of the Clyde has, therefore, departed; but although the river at Glasgow may look and smell very like a sewer, Glaswegians are proud of it, as they have every right to be, for it is their very own. The story is told of such a proprietary Glasgow man being assured by a Canadian that a dozen Clydes could be added to the St. Lawrence, and no difference be observed. “Weel, mebbe,” the Glaswegian is reported to have said; “the St. Lawrence is th’ wark o’ th’ Almichty, but we made th’ Clyde oorsels.”

The Clyde shipbuilding yards are to-day the first in the world, and the riverside, from Glasgow city to Port Glasgow and Greenock, rings with the clang of the hammers and the noise of the riveters busily adding to the maritime tonnage of the nation.