" In short, Hume
had only made a pretext of complying with the proposal, in order to have
an opportunity of reviling the Judges to their faces, or giving them, in
the phrase of his country, "a sloan." He was hurried off amid the
laughter of the audience, but the indecorous scene which had taken place
contributed to the abolition of the office of Dempster. The sentence is
now read over by the clerk of court, and the formality of pronouncing
doom is altogether omitted.
[The usage of calling the Dempster into court by the ringing of a
hand-bell, to repeat the sentence on a criminal, is said to have been
abrogated in March 1773.]
NOTE O.--John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich.
This nobleman was very dear to his countrymen, who were justly proud of
his military and political talents, and grateful for the ready zeal with
which he asserted the rights of his native country. This was never more
conspicuous than in the matter of the Porteous Mob, when the ministers
brought in a violent and vindictive bill, for declaring the Lord Provost
of Edinburgh incapable of bearing any public office in future, for not
foreseeing a disorder which no one foresaw, or interrupting the course of
a riot too formidable to endure opposition. The same bill made provision
for pulling down the city gates, and abolishing the city guard,--rather a
Hibernian mode of enabling their better to keep the peace within burgh in
future.
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