‘Colonel Crosbie takes the field;
To France and Spain he will not yield;
But still maintains his high command
At the head of the noble Defensive Band.’[138]
‘AULD REEKIE’
from Largo.
Mr Schetky was primarily concerned in the founding of the Boar Club. He was in the habit of meeting every night with Mr Aldridge and one or two other professional men, or gentlemen who affected the society of such persons, in Hogg’s tavern; and it was the host’s name that suggested the idea of calling their society the ‘Boar Club.’ Their laws were first written down in proper form in 1790. They were to meet every evening at seven o’clock; each boar, on his entry, to contribute a halfpenny to the pig. Mr Aldridge was to be perpetual Grand-boar, with Mr Schetky for his deputy; and there were other officers, entitled Secretary, Treasurer, and Procurator-fiscal. A fine of one halfpenny was imposed upon every person who called one of his brother-boars by his proper out-of-club name—the term ‘sir’ being only allowed. The entry-moneys, fines, and other pecuniary acquisitions were hoarded for a grand annual dinner. The laws were revised in 1799, when some new officials were constituted, such as Poet-laureate, Champion, Archbishop, and Chief-grunter. The fines were then rendered exceedingly severe, and in their exaction no one met with any mercy, as it was the interest of all the rest that the pig should bring forth as plenteous a farrow as possible at the grand dinner-day. This practice at length occasioning a violent insurrection in the sty, the whole fraternity was broken up, and never again returned to ‘wallow in the mire.’
The Hell-fire Club, a terrible and infamous association of wild young men about the beginning of the last century, met in various profound places throughout Edinburgh, where they practised orgies not more fit for seeing the light than the Eleusinian Mysteries. I have conversed with old people who had seen the last worn-out members of the Hell-fire Club, which in the country is to this day believed to have been an association in compact with the Prince of Darkness.