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They are seldom, it is true, indued with the gin-palace splendour of the London houses; nor is the liquor there sold such a villanous compound of drugs as too often goes by the name of English gin; but it is difficult to conceive that such an immense mass of strong spirit can be taken, without the body, mind, and purse of the drinkers being deteriorated. In the High Street, near the University, there were a few months ago four spirit-houses in a row, without any others intervening; and from thence down to the Clyde they occur much more thickly than in any part of London. In the Saltmarket alone, out of less than two hundred houses, there are no fewer than fifty spirit-dealers and vintners! The consumption of malt liquor is by no means excessive; and a stranger can hardly avoid remarking how few are the butchers' or "fleshers'" shops in the humbler neighbourhoods, and how poor is the quality of the meat there exposed. A little more beef, and a little less whiskey, would not make the Glasgow operatives any the poorer in pocket: would not the change be advantageous in some other respects?

Of course every large commercial and manufacturing town, such as Glasgow, must have extensive wholesale establishments, where either shopkeepers make their purchases, or export orders are provided for. In so far as they involve all the machinery of clerks and porters and shopmen, of offices and ware-rooms and shops, we need not say much about them. But there is one establishment at Glasgow too remarkable and too celebrated to pass without a little notice. We allude to the warehouse of Messrs. Campbell, in Candleriggs Street. In Scotland they have a very significant name "soft goods". for all those articles which we in England can designate only by the roundabout terms of "linen drapery," "silk mercery," and "haberdashery." Campbell's warehouse, then, is an emporium of " soft goods," in the most complete sense of the term. It was about thirty years ago that the operations of the firm commenced, on a humble scale in Saltmarket; but they have by degrees grown to such a vast extent that the annual business is said to have reached the amount of three quarters of a million sterling! It is the combination of wholesale and retail trade that most strikes one in this place. Externally there is no shop; but a large open doorway leads to a flight of steps, which ascends to what we may perhaps term the retail shop on the first floor. From this successive flights of stairs reach both upwards and downwards to separate "flats," every one of which, from the cellars to the roof, is crammed with goods, leaving only just room enough for those who have to transact business there. The classification is most admirable. Almost every imaginable kind of goods, in silk, woollen, linen, and cotton, is kept; and everything has a department of its own, superintended by a foreman or manager. And it is not simply a wholesale store-room, in which goods are packed away in gloomy-looking bales, but a series of show-rooms, in which the show is often very gorgeous. Everything beautiful and everything cheap is alike to be looked for here, accord

ing to the wants of the purchaser. In the tartan department we find the tartan plaids of all the Highland clans (each of which has its own) in many kinds of material; the woollen department, the handkerchief and shawl department, the lace department, the linen department, the printed muslin department—indeed all the departments are, each one in itself, complete establishments. It matters little what are the wants or the means of the purchaser. There may be, at the same time, a ragged little urchin buying a penny ball of cotton or a hap'orth of pins on one "flat;" while on another a foreign merchant is buying goods enough almost to freight a ship. It is not merely in buying and selling that this monster establishment is remarkable. Besides the two or three hundred persons who are employed in this daily traffic, there are upwards of two thousand persons, mostly women and children, always in the employ of the firm; in lace-running, embroidering, tambouring, making up caps and collars, and numerous other minor employments of a similar kind. These females live in all the villages many miles around Glasgow; so that the warehouse is the centre of a very extensive series of operations.

THE RISE OF GLASGOW COMMERCE.

In looking at the vast industrial arrangements which now distinguish Glasgow, it is interesting to watch the steps by which they have arisen. Glasgow is not, like some of our large towns, a place which has been distinguished age after age by the same kind of enterprizes: its deeds have changed amid other changes. Sheffield has always been the steel metropolis, since it attained anything like importance; Birmingham from its earliest history, has been the head quarters of numerous metal trades; Halifax and Leeds have known no other commercial fame than that which is connected with woollen manufactures. But this is not the case with Glasgow. Before iron, and cotton, and steam had given eminence to this city, the merchants of Glasgow were men whose commercial operations embraced a wide range, and placed them in communication with distant climes.

Scarcely anything is known of the commerce or industry of Glasgow till about the middle of the 16th century, when we learn that small Glasgow vessels were engaged in the transport of cured salmon to England and France. Even a century later than this date, nothing is said about manufactures. In 1651 the government employed a Mr. Tucker, as Commissioner, to report on the revenue and excise of Scotland; and his report concerning Glasgow is remarkable, for the very humble commercial position which it indicates. He says:"With the exception of the colliginors [college-men?] all the inhabitants are traders; some to Ireland with small smiddy-coals in open boats, from four to ten tons, from whence they bring hoops, rungs, barrel staves, meal, oats, and butter; some to France, with plaiding, coals, and herrings, from which the return is salt, pepper, raisins, and prunes; some to

more.

Norway for timber. There hath likewise been some who ventured as far as Barbadoes; but the loss which they sustained by being obliged to come home late in the year, has made them discontinue going there any The mercantile genius of the people is strong, if they were not checked and kept under by the shallowness of their river, every day more and more increasing and filling up, so that no vessel of any burden can come up nearer the town than fourteen miles, where they must unlade and send up their timber on rafts, and all other commodities by three or four tons of goods at a time, in small cobbles or boats, of three, four, or five, and none above six tons a boat." The remarkable allusion to the "mercantile genius of the people," and the "shallowness of the river," points to a matter which we shall see became afterwards an important one.

Nothing noticeable occurred to develope the resources of Glasgow until after the Union with England in 1707. This measure was violently opposed at Glasgow as well as at other towns in Scotland; but an advantage followed which the Glasgow people had apparently not anticipated. They became entitled to trade with the British colonies: a privilege which till then had not been permitted to them. In the New Statistical Account of Scotland,' the Glasgow portion of which was prepared by Dr. Cleland and Principal Macfarlane, there is given a very interesting extract from the private diary of Mr. Dugald Bannatyne, a gentleman who for more than half a century was closely connected with the mercantile enterprizes of Glasgow. His picture of the commercial system of that city, in the first half of the last century, is as follows:-" Up to the middle of the century, commercial concerns, whether for manufactures or foreign trade, were in general carried on by what might be termed Joint Stock Companies of credit. Six or eight responsible individuals having formed themselves into a company, advanced each into the concern a few hundred pounds, and borrowed on the personal bonds of the company whatever further capital was required for the undertaking. It was not till commercial capital, at a later period, had grown up in the country, that individuals, or even companies trading exclusively on their own capital, were to be found. The first adventure which went from Glasgow to Virginia, after the trade had been opened to the Scotch by the Union, was sent out under the sole charge of the captain of the vessel, acting also as supercargo. This person, although a shrewd man, knew nothing of accounts; and when he was asked by his employers, on his return, for a statement of how the adventure had turned out, told them he could give them none, but there were its proceeds, and threw down upon the table a large hoggar,' (stocking) | stuffed to the top with coin. The adventure had been a profitable one; and the company conceived that if an uneducated and untrained person had been so successful, their gains would have been still greater had a person versed in accounts been sent out with it. Under this impression they immediately despatched a

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second venture, with a supercargo highly recommended for a knowledge of accounts; who produced to them on his return a beautifully made-out statement of his transactions, but no 'hoggar.' The Virginia trade continued for a considerable time to be carried on by companies formed as has been described. One of the partners acted as manager; the others did not interfere. The transactions consisted in purchasing goods for the shipments made twice a year, and making sales of the tobacco which they received in return. The goods were bought upon twelve months' credit; and when a shipment came to be paid off, the manager sent notice to the different furnishers, to meet him on such a day, at such a wine shop, with their accounts discharged [receipted]. They then received the payment of their accounts, and along with it a glass of wine each, for which they paid. This curious mode of paying off their shipments was contrived with a view to furnish aid to some well-born young women, whose parents had fallen into bad circumstances, and whom it was customary to place in one of those shops: in the same way that, at an after period, such a person would have been put into a milliner's shop. These wine shops were opposite the Tontine Exchange."

A Glasgow vessel of 60 tons first crossed the Atlantic in 1718. The trade in tobacco became gradually so large, that the English merchants took the alarm, and they entered into a very wide-spread conspiracy, which had the effect of crippling the exertions of the energetic men of the north; but about 1735 the latter recovered themselves, and extended their operations in a vast degree. A new mode of conducting the commerce was adopted: instead of the supercargo system the factor system was followed. Factors were employed as residents in the colonies; and they were always at hand to make purchases and sales on account of the Glasgow houses, so as to acquire a much greater command over the market. So vast did the trade become in the course of years, that in the year 1772 it was estimated that "out of 90,000 hogsheads of tobacco imported into Britain, Glasgow alone imported 49,000." And about that time one Glasgow merchant, John Glassford (whose name is perpetuated in one of the streets of the city) owned 25 ships with their cargoes, and traded to the extent of half a million sterling annually.-In short, almost the whole capital of Glasgow was invested in the tobaccotrade.

The state of society took its tone from the state of commerce. The tobacco-merchants were the magnates, the great people of Glasgow, in the last century. Before the Union, the social condition of the city was very low; but increased intercourse with the world rubbed off the rust by degrees. One portion of Mr. Bannatyne's Diary tells us that at the beginning of the century," the dwelling-houses of the highest class of citizens in general contained only one public room, a dining-room; and even that was used only when they had company-the family at other times usually eating in a bed-room. After dinner the husband went to his

place of business, and in the evening to a club in a public-house, where, with little expense, he enjoyed himself till nine o'clock, at which hour the party uniformly broke up, and the husbands returned to their families. The wife gave tea at home in her own bedroom, receiving there the visits of her 'cummers;' a great deal of intercourse of this kind was kept upthe gentlemen seldom making their appearance at these parties. This meal was termed the four hours.' Families occasionally supped with one another." By the middle of the century, matters had become more stylish. "The intercourse of society was by evening parties, never exceeding twelve or fourteen persons, invited to tea and supper. They met at four, and after tea played cards till nine, when they supped. Their games were whist and quadrille. The gentlemen attended these parties, and did not go away with the ladies after supper, but continued to sit with the landlord, drinking punch, to a very late hour. The gentlemen frequently had dinner parties in their own houses; but it was not till a much later period that the great business of visiting was attempted to be carried on by dinner parties."

By about the year 1770, when the tobacco-lords had greatly enriched Glasgow, they had also introduced a more luxurious style of living. The dinner hour became later. The houses, the apparel, the furniture, the style of living-all were improved; wheel carriages were set up; a theatre and an assembly-room were built; the old wooden tenements with thatched roofs were pulled down, to be replaced by stone mansions; and the "gentilities" of life became momentous affairs. "Jamaica" Street, and "Virginia" Street, and other colonial names given to the principal streets, indicated the direction in which the thoughts of the Glasgow men tended; and the colonial merchants seem to have carried matters with a high hand over their less wealthy townsmen. It is said that the tobacco merchants were accustomed to promenade the Trongate, in the vicinity of the Cross, in long scarlet cloaks and bushy wigs.

their own, navigated by 500 seamen, to bring over the timber, which averaged 6,000,000 cubic feet annually!

THE CLYDE; THE BROOMIELAW; THE SHIPPING;
AND THE Bridges.

So much of the well-being of Glasgow depends on the Clyde, that if the river had not been improved, the city could not have advanced. Never surely was a river more important to a town; and never did townsmen labour more untiringly to make their river a great highway for shipping. The commercial history of the Clyde is more remarkable, for great results from small beginnings, than any other river in Britain.

At a distance of a few miles from the village of Elvanfoot, on the confines of the shires of Lanark and Dumfries, is a small group of hills which give birth to the Clyde, the Tweed, and the Annan. The triad of streams soon separates into its component parts; and the Clyde, receiving a number of small mountain streams, grows from a rivulet into a river. It passes among the Tinto Hills towards Lanark, near which town it forms the three beautiful and far-famed Falls of Clyde. These falls are termed Bonnington Linn, Corra Linn, and Stonebyres Linn, and are occasioned by the river having to sweep through a narrow rugged channel between rocky hills on its way to the sea; and the descent is 430 feet in about five miles. The river pursues a peaceful course from the falls to Glasgow. Opposite the city the river is about 400 feet in width; at this spot the vast operations of the Clyde trustees have commenced.

It is so very narrow, for a great part of the distance from Glasgow to Greenock, that nothing but the most energetic measures could have fitted it for the reception of large and abundant shipping. Steamers and Clyde improvements have gone on simultaneously; the steps of advance being highly interesting in a commercial point of view. It has been well observed, that the Clyde not only "bears along ships of heavy burden and deep draught of water, and is plentifully dotted with

agitation by large steam-ships bearing heavy cargoes from the shores of England and Ireland, by numerous coasting steam-vessels careering over its surface with live freights of human beings, and by steam tug-boats dragging behind them trains of unwieldy sailing craft."

The American Revolution gave a heavy and irreparable blow to the tobacco trade of Glasgow. The tobacco-producing colonies, by gaining their inde-yawls and wherries, but is kept in constant foaming. pendence, threw the trade in that commodity into new channels: and Glasgow was enabled to retain only a small portion of it. Had no other sources of commercial enterprise sprung into notoriety at that time, Glasgow might have fallen to a third-rate city; but Watt and Arkwright gave an impetus which the capitalists promptly obeyed, and an era of astonishing vigour and progress commenced. New branches of commerce sprang up with foreign countries, and some of these attained a condition of vast magnitude. When Dr. Cleland wrote his 'Annals of Glasgow,' about thirty years ago, there was a commercial firm, Messrs. Pollock and Gilmour, which carried on a timber trade scarcely equalled, perhaps, in Europe. They had eight establishments in America, for felling and shipping timber, which in various ways employed 15,000 men, and 600 horses and oxen; they had 21 large ships of

The traffic of Glasgow, near about two centuries ago, was thus described in a letter written by Commis sioner Tucket, a government agent, in 1651 :—" Nearly all the inhabitants are traders; some to Ireland with small smiddy coals, in open boats, from four to ten tons, from whence they bring hoops, rings, barrelstaves, meal, oats, and butter; some to France, with plaiding, coals, and herrings; from which the return is salt, pepper, raisins, and prunes; some to Norway, for timber. There hath likewise been some that ventured as far as Barbadoes; but the loss which they sustained, by being obliged to come home late

in the year, has made them discontinue going there any more. The mercantile genius of the people is strong, if they were not checked and kept under by the shallowness of their river, every day more and more increasing and filling up; so that no vessel of any burden can come up nearer the town than fourteen miles, where they must unlade and send up their timber in rafts, and all other commodities by three or four tons of goods at a time, in small cobbles cr boats, of three, four, or five, and none above six tons a boat."-Here we have a key to much of the energy of the "Glasgow folk :" their river was very shallow, and they could not embark in an extensive foreign trade without adopting some remedial measures. As we are not here writing a history or a description of Glasgow, it will suffice to say, that by constructing a harbour at Port Glasgow, lower down the Clyde; by dredging the river from end to end; by straightening the banks, and making quays and jetties; by deepening the bed so considerably as to enable vessels drawing fourteen feet of water to come up to the city itself; and by laying out basins and piers-the Glasgow merchants have wrought a wondrous change: only vessels of thirty or forty tons could approach Glasgow at the beginning of the present century; whereas now the busy Broomielaw exhibits its ships of 700 or 800 tons burden.

Meanwhile the genius of James Watt has been doing its work. In the present century, when steam navigation opened a new era in the modes of travelling, Glasgow and the neighbourhood possess all the elements necessary for the establishment of such a system: she had steam-engines and steam-engine factories'black band' to yield iron, and iron works to cast or roll it-manufactures to export, and a market for the return cargo-pleasant lochs and isles to visit by steam trips, and a population able and willing to visit them. It was in 1812 that the little 'Comet,' made by Wood and Co., of Port Glasgow, and brought out by Henry Bell, first glided down the Clyde by steam power, after having been tried in the previous year on the Forth. She made five miles an hour against a head wind; and ought to have brought her ingenious projector both fortune and fame-fame, to hardly an adequate extent, has come since his death; but fortune never reached him.

For five or six years the Clyde was the scene of experimental steam-trips, before the Glasgow people would venture out to sea by such guidance; but in 1818 David Napier decided this matter in the most efficient way. "It is to this gentleman," says Mr. Scott Russell, "that Great Britain owes the introduction of deep-sea communication by steam vessels, and the establishment of Post-office steam-packets. In 1818 Mr. Napier established between Greenock and Belfast a regular steam communication by means of the 'Rob Roy,' a vessel built by Mr. William Denny, of Dumbarton, of about 90 tons burden, and 30-horse power. For two winters she plied with perfect regularity and success between these ports, and was afterwards transferred to the English Channel, to serve a

a packet-boat between Dover and Calais. Having thus ventured into the open sea, Mr. Napier was not slow in extending his range. Soon after Messrs. Wood built for him the 'Talbot,' of 120 tons, with two of Mr. Napier's engines, each of 30-horse power. This vessel was in all respects the most perfect of her day, and was formed on a model which was long in being surpassed. She was the first vessel that plied between Holyhead and Dublin. About the same time he established the line of steam-ship between the stations of Liverpool, Greenock, and Glasgow."

How vast has been the progress since then-scarcely thirty years ago! The Clyde, the Mersey, and the Thames, have worthily kept pace with each other. It is a fact always observable, that there are ship-building establishments and engineering works at or near the spots where steam navigation has made the most rapid strides; and it is not difficult to see that such are almost necessary concomitants. The engineering establishments of Glasgow, especially connected with steam-ships, are among the most interesting of its industrial features. Those of the Napiers, especially, are notable for the fine ships for which they have furnished engines. The British Queen,' the 'Britannia,' the Acadia,' the Caledonia,' the Columbia,' and others, whose names have become almost household words with those who read about TransAtlantic steaming-all had their engines from the celebrated Vulcan Foundry' at Glasgow. The making of iron steam-boats, too, has been taken up with great energy; and the same firms now frequently make the boat or ship itself, and the engines which are to be put into it.

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It would be no easy matter to name all the steam routes of which Glasgow is the starting-point. A writer in the Gazetteer of Scotland truly remarks, that "The steam-boat quay of Glasgow, especially during the summer months, presents one of the most animated scenes which it is possible to conceive. River-boats, of beautiful construction, leave the Broomielaw every hour from morning till night; and some of them possess such power of steam, that they career along the Clyde at the rate of from twelve to fourteen miles an hour. The larger boats, especially those plying between Liverpool and Glasgow, are in reality floating palaces, having cabins fitted up at vast expense, and with every regard to grace and architectural beauty."

The pleasure trips on the Clyde-one of the features. introduced by steam-boats-are remarkable for their cheapness, and for the varied scenery to which they introduce the tourist. He sooner reaches fine scenery than the Thames tourist to Gravesend or Margate. Six o'clock in the morning is not an uncommon time for Glasgow tourists to start for a day down the Clyde and up to Loch Lomond. A fare of sixpence for a deck passenger (and who cares to be below deck in a fine river trip?) will take him down the Clyde. First he passes the busy and smoking engineering works. Next he arrives so far in the suburbs, that the villas of the citizens begin to peep out on either bank-forming

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