The Cross was the peculiar citadel and rallying-point of a species of lazzaroni called Caddies or Cawdies, which formerly existed in Edinburgh, employing themselves chiefly as street-messengers and valets de place. A ragged, half-blackguard-looking set they were, but allowed to be amazingly acute and intelligent, and also faithful to any duty entrusted to them. A stranger coming to reside temporarily in Edinburgh got a caddy attached to his service to conduct him from one part of the town to another, to run errands for him; in short, to be wholly at his bidding.
‘Omnia novit,
Græculus esuriens, in cœlum, jusseris, ibit.’
A caddy did literally know everything—of Edinburgh; even to that kind of knowledge which we now only expect in a street directory. And it was equally true that he could hardly be asked to go anywhere, or upon any mission, that he would not go. On the other hand, the stranger would probably be astonished to find that, in a few hours, his caddy was acquainted with every particular regarding himself, where he was from, what was his purpose in Edinburgh, his family connections, and his own tastes and dispositions. Of course for every particle of scandal floating about Edinburgh, the caddy was a ready book of reference. We sometimes wonder how our ancestors did without newspapers. We do not reflect on the living vehicles of news which then existed: the privileged beggar for the country people; for townsfolk, the caddies.
The caddy is alluded to as a useful kind of blackguard in Burt’s Letters from the North of Scotland, written about 1740. He says that although they are mere wretches in rags, lying upon stairs and in the streets at night, they are often considerably trusted, and seldom or never prove unfaithful. The story told by tradition is that they formed a society under a chief called their constable, with a common fund or box; that when they committed any misdemeanour, such as incivility or lying, they were punished by this officer by fines, or sometimes corporeally; and if by any chance money entrusted to them should not be forthcoming, it was made up out of the common treasury. Mr Burt says: ‘Whether it be true or not I cannot say, but I have been told by several that one of the judges formerly abandoned two of his sons for a time to this way of life, as believing it would create in them a sharpness which might be of use to them in the future course of their lives.’ Major Topham, describing Edinburgh in 1774, says of the caddies: ‘In short, they are the tutelary guardians of the city; and it is entirely owing to them that there are fewer robberies and less housebreaking in Edinburgh than anywhere else.’
Another conspicuous set of public servants characteristic of Edinburgh in past times were the Chairmen, or carriers of sedans, who also formed a society among themselves, but were of superior respectability, in as far as none but steady, considerate persons of so humble an order could become possessed of the means to buy the vehicle by which they made their bread. In former times, when Edinburgh was so much more limited than now, and rather an assemblage of alleys than of streets, sedans were in comparatively great request. They were especially in requisition amongst the ladies—indeed, almost exclusively so. From time immemorial the sons of the Gael have monopolised this branch of service; and as far as the business of a sedan-carrier can yet be said to exist amongst us, it is in the possession of Highlanders.
The reader must not be in too great haste to smile when I claim his regard for an historical person among the chairmen of Edinburgh. This was Edward Burke, the immediate attendant of Prince Charles Edward during the earlier portion of his wanderings in the Highlands. Honest Ned had been a chairman in our city, but attaching himself as a servant to Mr Alexander Macleod of Muiravonside, aide-de-camp to the Prince, it was his fortune to be present at the battle of Culloden, and to fly from the field in his Royal Highness’s company. He attended the Prince for several weeks, sharing cheerfully in all his hardships, and doing his best to promote his escape. Thus has his name been inseparably associated with this remarkable chapter of history. After parting with Charles, this poor man underwent some dreadful hardships while under hiding, his fears of being taken having reference chiefly to the Prince, as he was apprehensive that the enemy might torture him to gain intelligence of his late master’s movements. At length the Act of Indemnity placed him at his ease; and the humble creature who, by a word of his mouth, might have gained thirty thousand pounds, quietly returned to his duty as a chairman on the streets of Edinburgh! Which of the venal train of Walpole, which even of the admirers of Pulteney, is more entitled to admiration than Ned Burke? A man, too, who could neither read nor write—for such was actually his case.[153]
One cannot but feel it to be in some small degree a consolatory circumstance, and not without a certain air of the romance of an earlier day, that a bacchanal company came with a bowl of punch, the night before the demolition, and in that mood of mind when men shed ‘smiles that might as well be tears,’ drank the Dredgie of the Cross upon its doomed battlements.
‘Oh! be his tomb as lead to lead,