Yet there are some very criticizable things about Edinburgh, such as the unseemly billing and cooing of lovers of the servant class in public places, for instance the Princes Street Gardens, where they may be seen at almost any hour of the day embracing each other in the most unblushing manner, apparently oblivious of the passing multitude. There may be just as much of this going on in the parks of other cities, but the peculiar position of these lovely gardens in the great, green hollow in the very centre of the city, in plain view of the most crowded streets, and the most popular hotels, makes this impropriety more obtrusive here than it is anywhere else.
PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH.
But worse than this are the ever-present proofs of the poverty, wretchedness and degradation of great numbers of the people. The slums of Edinburgh are more constantly in evidence than those of any other city in the world. The reason for this is not that the slums are more populous or worse than those of other cities, but that the parts of Edinburgh which are of the greatest interest to visitors, viz., the High Street, from the Castle to Holyrood, and the adjacent districts, where the great families once lived, and where the most memorable events of the city's history occurred, the parts made familiar to all readers by the writings of Sir Walter Scott and the historians of Scotland, have long since been abandoned by the better classes, and are now occupied by the poorest and most degraded. So that every reading person who visits Edinburgh is brought face to face, day after day, with all this squalor and misery; and it is so different from what one naturally expects to find in Scotland, and especially in this ancient and wealthy seat of learning, that it makes a very strong impression upon the imagination—an impression so strong that it is scarcely counterbalanced, even by long sojourn in the scrupulously clean residential sections, on either side of this filthy and festering centre.
Cause of her Wretchedness.
Why should there be such a plague spot in the heart of Edinburgh? The explanation cannot be found in any lack of native ability on the part of Scotchmen to overcome the conditions that bring about abject poverty. It is universally conceded that in the qualities which make for success in life the Scots are well-nigh unrivalled. Mr. Andrew Carnegie is a pre-eminent example, but the thrift of Scotchmen in general is a proverb. [2]
Nor can the explanation of the dire poverty and wretchedness seen in Scotch cities be found in their disregard of the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath worship, as in the case of some other European peoples, though there seems to be of late some relaxation of their rigid sabbatarianism. Their strictness in this matter has been the subject of many a good story. One is told of a little girl in Aberdeen, who brought a basket of strawberries to the minister's, very early Monday morning.
"Thank you, my little girl, they are very nice,", said the minister; "but I hope you did not pick them yesterday, for it was Sunday, you know."