By me that sour Turk (I not frighted) our Kirk-
Treasurer’s man passed.
And sure more horrid monster in the Torrid
Zone cannot be found, sir, though for snakes renowned, sir;
Nor does Czar Peter’s empire boast such creatures,
Of bears the wet-nurse.’[[409]]
Burt, who, as an English stranger, viewed the moral police of Scotland with a curious surprise, broadly asserts that the Kirk-treasurer employed spies to track out and report upon private individuals; so that ‘people lie at the mercy of villains who would perhaps forswear themselves for sixpence.’ Sometimes, a brother and sister, or a man and his wife, walking quietly together, would find themselves under the observation of emissaries of the Kirk-treasurer. Burt says he had known the town-guard in Edinburgh under arms for a night besetting a house into which two persons had been seen to enter. He at the same time remarks the extreme anxiety about Sabbath observance. It seemed as if the Scotch recognised no other virtue. ‘People would startle more at the humming or whistling of a tune on a Sunday, than if anybody should tell them you had ruined a family.’[[410]]
It must have been a great rejoicement to the gay people, when a Kirk-treasurer—as we are told by Burt[[411]]—‘having a round sum of money in his keeping, the property of the kirk, marched off with the cash, and took his neighbour’s wife along with him to bear him company and partake of the spoil.’
The very imperfect success of acts and statutes for improving the habits of the people, is strongly hinted at by their frequent repetition or renewal. We find it acknowledged by the Town Council of Edinburgh, in June 1709, that the Lord’s Day is still ‘profaned by people standing on the streets, and vaguing to fields and gardens, and to the Castlehill; also by standing idle gazing |1708.| out at windows, and children, apprentices, and other servants playing on the streets.’[[412]]
Nov. 22.