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.
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.