Note 68 — Chapter IX

It ought to be mentioned that the tailor is also called in. In former times this craftsman used to visit a farmer’s or cottager’s house, with all his train of callow apprentices, once a year; and he lived in a family way with the inhabitants till his work was finished, when he received twopence a-day for what he had done, and went away to mis-shape human garments at some other house. About sixty years ago, there was a sort of strike among the tailors, for a groat instead of twopence a day; and this mighty wage continued without further increase till the practice of taking tailors into the family has been nearly discontinued everywhere. It was not the wages, however, but the food of the tailor, which constituted his chief guerdon. The tailor was always well-fed, and if there were anything better than another in the house it was reserved for him. When, in spring time, the gudewife’s mart-barrel was getting nearly exhausted of its savoury contents, she would put off the family with something less substantial for a few weeks in expectation of her annual visitors—“We maun hain a bit for the tailyeours, ye ken!” she would say.

In support of what we advance in the text, we may observe that it is not more than half a century since house-spinning was nearly as prevalent in the city of Edinburgh as in the country, and it will yet be in the recollection of the most aged of our readers, that signs were prevalent in the streets, bearing that “Lint was given out to spin—in here,—down this close,—through this entry,” etc., etc. In these days the Netherbow, a mean range of buildings at the eastern extremity of the High Street, was entirely occupied by weavers who “took in customer-wark,”—in proof of which fact we may cite the multiplicity of the windows in those houses, which are still permitted to exist. Now, alas! the shuttles of this busy neighbourhood, are as silent as the wheels of the spinsters, in whose hands pianofortes and Brookman’s pencils supply the place of “rocks and reels.”