On the north side, there remained the marks of what had once been a sort of bridge communicating between the Tolbooth and the houses immediately opposite. This part of the building got the name of the “Purses,” on account of its having been the place where, in former times, on the King’s birthday, the magistrates delivered donations of as many pence as the King was years old to the same number of beggars or “blue-gowns.” There was a very dark room on this side, which was latterly used as a guard-house by the right venerable military police of Edinburgh, but which had formerly been the fashionable silk-shop of the father of the celebrated Francis Horner. At the east end there was nothing remarkable, except an iron box, attached to the wall, for the reception of small donations in behalf of the poor prisoners, over which was a painted board, containing some quotations from Scripture. In the lower flat of the south and sunny side, besides a shop, there was a den for the accommodation of the outer door-keeper, and where it was necessary to apply when admission was required, and the old gray-haired man was not found at the door. The main door was at the bottom of the great turret or turnpike stair, which projected from the south-east corner. It was a small but very strong door, full of large headed nails, and having an enormous lock, with a flap to conceal the keyhole, which could itself be locked, but was generally left open.
One important feature in the externals of the Tolbooth was, that about one third of the building, including the turnpike, was of ashlar work—that is, smooth freestone—while the rest seemed of coarser and more modern construction, besides having a turnpike about the centre, without a door at the bottom. The floors of the “west end,” as it was always called, were somewhat above the level of those in the “east end,” and in recent times the purposes of these different quarters was quite distinct—the former containing the debtors, and the latter the criminals. As the “east end” contained the hall in which the Scottish Parliament formerly met, we may safely suppose it to have been the oldest part of the building—an hypothesis which derives additional credit from the various appearance of the two quarters—the one having been apparently designed for a more noble purpose than the other. The eastern division must have been of vast antiquity, as James the Third fenced a Parliament in it, and the magistrates of Edinburgh let the lower flat for booths or shops, so early as the year 1480.
On passing the outer door, where the rioters of 1736 thundered with their sledge-hammers, and finally burnt down all that interposed between them and their prey, the keeper instantly involved the entrant in darkness by reclosing the gloomy portal. A flight of about twenty steps then led to an inner door, which, being duly knocked, was opened by a bottle-nosed personage denominated “Peter,” who, like his sainted namesake, always carried two or three large keys. You then entered “the hall,” which, being free to all the prisoners except those of the “east end,” was usually filled with a crowd of shabby-looking, but very merry loungers. This being also the chapel of the jail, contained an old pulpit of singular fashion,—such a pulpit as one could imagine John Knox to have preached from; which, indeed, he was traditionally said to have actually done. At the right-hand side of the pulpit was a door leading up the large turnpike to the apartments occupied by the criminals, one of which was of plate-iron. This door was always shut, except when food was taken up to the prisoners.
On the north side of the hall was the “Captain’s Room,” a small place like a counting-room, but adorned with two fearful old muskets and a sword, together with the sheath of a bayonet, and one or two bandeliers, alike understood to hang there for the defence of the jail. On the west end of the hall hung a board, on which—the production, probably, of some insolvent poetaster—were inscribed the following emphatic lines:—
A prison is a house of care,
A place where none can thrive,
A touchstone true to try a friend,
A grave for men alive—
Sometimes a place of right,
Sometimes a place of wrong,