Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 418

Fifteen years afterwards, during the regency of Mary of Lorraine, it was found that the act just cited was not sufficiently stringent, and that some sterner provision must be made to enable the aristocracy to get cheap wine. An act was passed referring to the previous one, and stating that 'nevertheless the noblemen—such as prelates, earls, lords, barons, and other gentlemen—are not served according to the said act, but are constrained to buy the same from merchants at greater prices, contrary to the tenor of the said acts.' Hence it is declared that whenever wines have arrived in any town, and the prices have been fixed, the magistrates 'shall incontinent pass to the market-cross of that burgh, and there, by open proclamation, declare none of the goods foresaid as they are made, and that none of the goods foresaid be disposed of for the space of four days.' Thus were measures taken to let the privileged persons have the benefit of their preemption.

That these acts, and the proclamations for enforcing them, were not a dead letter is shewn by the criminal records. On the 8th of March 1550, Robert Hathwy, John Sym, and James Lourie, burgesses of Edinburgh, confess their guilt in transgressing a regulation against purchasing Bordeaux wines dearer than L.22, 10s. (Scots of course) per tun, and Rochelle wines dearer than L.18 per tun. On the 4th of May 1555, George Hume and thirteen other citizens of Leith were arraigned for retailing wines above the proclaimed price—which for Bordeaux and Anjou wine was 10d. per pint; and for Rochelle, Sherry, and something called Cunezeoch—which may for all we know to the contrary mean Cognac—8d. per pint.

In Ireland the privilege of having their wine cheaper than other people was given to the aristocracy with almost more flagrant audacity. By the Irish statute of the 28th Elizabeth, chap. 4, imposing customs-duties on wines, the lord-lieutenant is not only authorised to take for his own consumption twenty tuns, duty free, annually, but he is at the same time declared to have 'full power to grant, limit, and appoint, unto every peer of this realm, and to every of the Privy-Council in the same, and the queen's learned counsel for the time being, at his or their discretion from time to time, such portion and quantity of wines, to be free and discharged of and from the said customs and subsidy, as he shall think to be mete and competent for every of them, after their degrees and callings to have.'

To return to Scotland. In the ensuing century we find the legislature resorting to the homely liquor of the working-classes. On the 23d December 1669, an act was passed which begins in the following considerate and paternal fashion:—

'Our sovereign lord, considering that it is most agreeable to reason and equity, and of universal concernment to all his majesty's subjects, and especially to those of the meaner sort, that a due proportion be observed betwixt the price of the boll of beer and the pint and other measures of ale and drinking-beer rented and sold within this kingdom, that thereby the liberty taken by brewers and vintners, to exact exorbitant prices for ale and drinking-beer at their pleasure, may be restrained. Therefore his majesty, with advice and consent of his estates of parliament, doth recommend to and authorise the lords of his majesty's Privy-Council from time to time, after consideration had of the ordinary rates of rough beer and barley for the time, to regulate and set down the prices of ale and drinking-beer rented and sold in the several shires and burghs of the kingdom, as they shall think just and reasonable.' The council were authorised to make their regulations by acts and orders, 'and to inflict such censures, pains, and penalties upon the contraveners of these acts and orders as they shall think fit; and to do all other things requisite for the execution of the same.'

When the Scottish Privy-Council ceased to exist by the union with England, there was some difficulty in knowing how this act should be applied. The Court of Session, looking upon the supply of ale as vital to the country, took on itself to protect the public, just as a passenger sometimes undertakes the management of a vessel which has lost its proper commander. On the occasion of the malt-duty being extended to Scotland in 1725, they thought a juncture had come when it was absolutely necessary to interfere, as there was no saying how far the brewers, let loose from the old regulations of the Privy-Council, might abuse the public by charging an extravagant price or selling a bad article. The Court of Session is the supreme civil tribunal in Scotland. Its rules of court for the regulation of judicial proceedings are called 'acts of sederunt.' On this occasion it passed 'an act for preventing the sale of bad ale.' The object was an excellent one, but we are apt at the present day to consider that brewers under the influence of competition can best save the public from bad ale, and that judges are better employed when they direct their attention to the protection of the public from bad law. They enacted that the brewers should sell by wholesale at a merk Scots per gallon, and that dealers should sell by retail at 2d. per pint. They professed to make this regulation from 'taking into consideration the frequent abuses in vending and retailing bad twopenny ale; and that from the present duties and burdens wherewith the brewers of ale in and about the city of Edinburgh are charged, occasion may be taken by ill-designing persons to impose on the lieges and undersell fair dealers, unless the prices for brewers and retailers be certain and fixed.'

The brewers threatened to give up their business, and the court found it necessary to take farther measures. Another act of sederunt was passed. It is best, we think, where their contents are so curious, to quote the documents themselves, however stiff or formal they may seem, and the commencement of the act follows:

'Whereas, in the information and memorial this day offered by his majesty's advocate to the Lords of Council and Session, it is represented that the brewers within the city of Edinburgh and liberties thereof, and others who have the privilege of furnishing the said city with ale, have entered into a resolution and confederacy that they will at once give over brewing when the duties on malt granted to his majesty by act of parliament are attempted to be recovered; that this resolution and confederacy must bring much distress on the good people of the said city through want of ale, and likewise by want of bread, the preparing whereof depends upon yeast or barm, and must produce tumults and confusions, to the overthrow of all good government, and to the great loss and hurt of the most innocent of his majesty's subjects, and is most dangerous and highly criminal.'

Thus, it being clearly shewn that the refusal of brewers to brew ale at the price fixed by the judges of the Court of Session must produce something like a French revolution, and be followed by general anarchy, the court next proceeds to declare—not in the best of composition—'that it is illegal and inconsistent with the public welfare for common brewers, or others whose employment is to provide necessary sustenance for the people, all at once to quit and forbear the exercise of their occupation, when they are in the sole possession of the materials, houses, and instruments for to carry on the trade, so that the people may be deprived of, or much straitened in their meat or drink; and that so to do in defiance and contempt of the laws is highly criminal and severely punishable. And therefore the said Lords of Council and Session, to prevent the mischiefs threatened to the city and limits aforesaid, do hereby require and ordain all and every brewer and brewers within the city of Edinburgh and liberties thereof, and others who have the privilege of furnishing the said city with ale, to continue and carry on their trade of brewing for the service of the lieges.'

It is astonishing to find that the brewers gave way. Scotland was at that time much under government and aristocratic influence; and very likely the poor men felt that it would be better to lose a little money than to fight a battle with the Court of Session, especially as the Lord Advocate threatened to indict them for a conspiracy. That they continued permanently to accept of the profits—or rather, perhaps, losses—fixed by the Court of Session no one will believe. They would in due time manage to get the usual profit of capital and exertion from their operations, or else would contrive to give up business.

It is one of the consequences of adopting false and artificial notions on political economy, that these drive the most conscientious and virtuous men to the most mischievous and violent extremities. Where things should be left to themselves they believe interference to be right, and so believing, they think it necessary to carry out their views at whatever cost. A remarkable instance of this was shewn by the virtuous and high-minded Duncan Forbes of Culloden. He thought the introduction of foreign commodities ruinous to the country. He considered that whatever was paid for them was so much lost to his fellow-countrymen. On this principle he waged a determined war against a foreign commodity coming into vogue in his latter days, using all his endeavours to suppress its use, and substitute for it a commodity of home-produce. Will the reader, in the days of temperance societies, believe that the commodity which he desired to suppress was tea, and that which he wished to encourage was beer? Here are his own words in a letter to a statesman of the time: 'The cause of the mischief we complain of is evidently the excessive use of tea, which is now become so common that the meanest families even of labouring people, particularly in burghs, make their morning's meal of it, and thereby wholly disuse the ale which heretofore was their accustomed drink; and the same drug supplies all the labouring women with their afternoon's entertainment, even to the exclusion of the twopenny.' After so formidable a picture, it is not unnatural to find him thus crying out against the influence of Dutch enterprise, which was then spreading the drink which cheers but not inebriates throughout Europe: 'They run their low-priced tea into Scotland, and sold it very cheap—a pound went from half a crown to three or four shillings. The goodwife was fond of it because her betters made use of tea; a pound of it would last her a month, which made her breakfast very cheap, so she made no account of the sugar which she took up only in ounces. In short, the itch spread; the refuse of the vilest teas were run into this country from Holland, sold and bought at the prices I have mentioned; and at present there are very few cobblers in any of the burghs of this country who do not sit down gravely with their wives and families to tea.'4] What a frightful picture! We may laugh at it, but it really was frightful to one who sincerely believed that the money paid for tea was a dead loss to the country, and who did not know that the tea was paid for by the exportation of home-produce.

FAMILY LIFE IN A NEGRO TOWN

There is a large mass of mankind occupying an intermediate position between the savage and the civilised nations of the world. These have no literature of their own, yet they have received some amount of knowledge by tradition or communication with other people. They know little or nothing of science, yet they are skilled in some of the useful arts of life. They have no regular legislation nor codes of civil law, yet they have forms of government and unwritten laws to which they steadfastly adhere, and about which they can plead as eloquently as a Chancery barrister or an advocate in the Courts of Session. While they cultivate the ground, keep cattle, and live upon the lawful products of the soil, they have none of the culinary dainties of life; whilst they plant the cotton-tree, and weave and dye cloth to make their garments, their clothing is scant, and devoid of all excellence in the manufacture. As far removed from the polite European on the one hand, as from the savage Indian or the rude Hottentot on the other, they may be rightly termed the semi-barbarous portion of mankind. It is a curious question how they came to occupy this middle state of civilisation, which they have retained for so many centuries. We know that the wandering tribes of Asia, and some of the kingdoms of that continent which partake of the characteristics now described, in former ages enjoyed seasons of national splendour and gleams of civilisation, the twilight of which has not yet passed away; but we know nothing of the history of Central Africa, a large part of which is composed of semi-barbarous nations.

We now specially refer to that portion of the African continent which lies between the Great Desert and the Kong Mountains, with a continuation toward Lake Tchad—comprising a tract of country about 300 miles in length and 2000 in breadth. South of this latitude the people are more barbarous and cruel, and the deserts of the west are inhabited by tribes more purely negro and ignorant. Moors, Mandingoes, Foolahs, and Jaloofs, principally dwell in this vast region of West-Central Africa. All these peoples are more or less European in their form and countenance; the pure negroes occasionally mixed with them being probably imported slaves or their descendants. These nations differ from each other in their languages, and in some of their customs and manners; but there is a similarity in their mode of living, if we except the Moors, which makes it as unnecessary as it would be tedious to describe each of them separately. We wish to make our readers acquainted with the forms and habits of semi-barbarous life, whatever local name or geographical appearance it may assume.

The first and most important feature of observation is the position of the female sex. This regulates the size of the houses and the towns, the nature of agriculture, and the whole social economy. In Africa the women are emphatically the working-class of the community, and hold an intermediate station between wife and slave, occupying the rank and employments of both. A wife is usually bought for so many head of cattle or such a number of slaves, and then becomes the property of her husband. There is no limit to the number of wives. Even the Mohammedan negroes do not conform to the Koran in its restriction to the number of four. One chief boasted that he had eighty wives; and upon the Englishman answering that his countrymen thought one woman quite enough to manage, the African flourished a whip, with which he said he kept them in order. In some countries one of these wives is recognised as head-wife, and enjoys certain prerogatives appertaining to this place.

Being desirous of obtaining an insight into the minutiae of African life, we accepted the invitation of a negro who traded on the Gambia to pay him a visit, and spend a day in his town, especially as there would be a dance in the evening. We left our vessel in the morning, and having rowed for some miles up a tributary stream, landed in an open place. Here we met the horses which Samba had sent for us, as the town lay at a considerable distance. They were fine animals, of a small breed, but very spirited, and apparently only half-trained. Their accoutrements were in some respects novel; for the saddle was an unwieldy article, with a high pommel in front, and an elevation behind, so that we were fairly wedged in the seat, and had many thumps before we learned to sit correctly in these stocks. We therefore had no wish, as we had little opportunity, of trying the speed of our beasts, the road lying through a vast forest. The men who accompanied us were armed with muskets, and kept a sharp look-out among the bushes, though there was not much fear of being attacked in this place by wild beasts in the day-time, as it was a frequented route and had been often visited by the hunter. By and by we came, to a stream, which was fordable in the dry season. Senegambia abounds with rivers and creeks; indeed it seems to be one of the best-watered regions of the earth, and has excellent means of communication for trade. These waters are full of fish, which form an important article of food for the people.

After crossing the river, we saw the place of our destination on a rising ground surrounded with fields. The town was surrounded with a low mud-wall and stockade to keep off wild beasts, and as a slight protection against roving freebooters. Larger towns, especially those belonging to warrior chiefs, have high mud-walls, sometimes with loopholes and bastions, and are capable of standing a siege where the enemy has neither cannon nor battering-rams. The gate was made of planks shaped with the axe, for the natives have no saws. The appearance of the place from a distance was very singular, for it consisted of 400 or 500 huts, all built in the same manner, with conical roofs thatched with grass. No chimneys, spires, nor windows relieved the monotony of the scene. Upon entering, we threaded our way through narrow passages, between high fences, as through the mazes of a labyrinth, where we might have wandered all day without finding an exit. At last our guides brought us to a wicket-door, through which we passed, and found ourselves in Samba's enclosure. He welcomed us with great cordiality, and led us towards his dwelling through a group of inquisitive women and children. It was a circular hut, rather larger than the others, and constructed with a little more care. The wall was composed of large lumps of clay in square blocks, laid upon each other while still wet; these speedily dry and harden in the sun, forming a substantial support, of about four feet high, for the roof. The roof is a conical frame of bamboo-cane thatched with long grass, having long eaves to protect the walls from the deluging rains of Africa. The most substantial of these dwellings are liable to be undermined by wet, if the ground be level, or to be penetrated by rain, if the roof be not kept in good repair; in which case the sides can no longer support its weight. For this, reason, deserted towns soon become heaps of mud ruins, and finally a mound of clay.

The interior of Samba's dwelling was as simple as the outside. On one side was a platform or hurdle of cane, raised about two feet from the ground upon stakes. This served for a bedstead, and the bedding was composed of a simple skin or mat. Being rich, Samba had other mats for himself and his friends to sit upon, and two or three low stools. His gun, spear, leathern bottle, and other accoutrements, lay in a convenient place: and we observed a couple of boxes, one of which contained clothes, and the other a heterogeneous mass of trifling valuables received from Europeans. Of course such boxes and their contents are not of frequent occurrence in these lowly dwellings. Near this hut was another small one which served for a kitchen: it contained some earthen pots, wooden bowls, and calabashes, with iron pots and neat baskets as articles of distinction. Here was also the large pestle and mortar, the use of which will be presently described.

Samba was dressed in the usual garb of a negro gentleman. He wore large cotton drawers, which reached half-way down the leg, and a loose smock with wide sleeves. On his feet were sandals, fastened with leathern straps over his toes, the legs being bare. His head was covered with a white cap encircled with a Paisley shawl—which I had formerly given him—and which was worn in the manner of a turban. Two large greegrees or amulets—being leathern purses, containing some holy words or sacred scraps—depended from his neck by silken cords. This costume was pleasing, and set off his manly form to advantage. One of his wives immediately presented us with a calabash of sour milk, and some cakes of rice of pounded nuts and honey. The Africans have in general only two meals a day; but some, who can afford it, take lunch about two o'clock. Strict Mohammedans profess not to drink intoxicating liquors; but looser religionists cannot resist the temptation of rum, of which the pagan negroes drink to excess. Samba brought out a bottle of this liquor, and presented it with evident glee, himself doing justice to its contents.

We then proceeded to view the rest of the premises. Samba had six wives, each of whom had a separate hut. Their dwellings resembled that of their lord, but were of smaller size, and the doors were very low, so as to require considerable stooping to enter. These apertures for admitting light, air, and human beings, and for letting out the smoke, always look towards the west, for the easterly wind brings clouds of sand; and if the tornadoes which blow from the same quarter are allowed an inlet to a hut, they speedily make an outlet for themselves by whirling the roof into the air. The women were dressed in their best style on the occasion of our visit. One cloth, or pang, was fastened round their waist, and hung down to the ankles: another was thrown loosely over the bosom and shoulders. Their hair was plaited with ribbons, and decorated with beads, coral, and pieces of gold. Their legs were bare; but they had neat sandals on their feet. They were loaded with necklaces, bracelets, armlets, and anklets, composed of coral, amber, and fine glass-beads, interspersed with beads of gold and silver. These are their wealth and their pride. Some had little children, whose only covering was strings of beads round the waist, neck, ankles, and wrists: an elder girl of about ten years had a small cloth about her loins. We saw no furniture in their huts except a few bowls and calabashes, a rude distaff for spinning cotton, and the usual bed-hurdle covered with mats. The ladies were very garrulous and inquisitive, narrowly inspecting our skin and dress, and asking many questions about European females. They wondered how a rich man could do with only one wife, but thought monogamy was a good thing for the women. These mothers never carry their children in their arms, but infants are borne in a pang upon the back.

Another hut served for Samba's store, where he kept his merchandise; another was occupied by some female slaves, and another by male slaves. These poor creatures wore only a cloth round their loins, hanging as far as the knees; the females had each a necklace of common beads given by their mistresses. At night they lie down upon a mat or skin, and light a fire in the middle of the hut. This serves both for warmth and to keep away noxious insects. Their furniture consisted of working instruments—hoes, calabashes, rush-baskets, and the redoubtable paloon. The last-mentioned instrument is a large wooden mortar made by the Loubles, a wandering class of Foolahs, one of the most stunted and ugly of African races, and quite different from the pastoral and warrior tribes. These roving gipsies work in wood, and may be called the coopers of Africa. When they find a convenient spot of ground furnished with the proper kind of trees, they immediately proceed to cut them down: the branches are formed into temporary huts, and the trunks are made into canoes, bowls, pestles and mortars, and other wooden utensils. Their chief implements are an axe and a knife, which they use with great dexterity.

The freemen are very indolent, and, with the exception of the Foolahs, seldom engage in any useful work. The time not occupied in hunting, fishing, travelling, or public business, is usually spent in indolent smoking, gossipping, or revelling. The male slaves are employed in felling timber, weaving, drawing water, collecting grass for horses, and helping the women in the fields; but as all this, excepting the first, can be done by females, the slaveholders do not care to keep many male slaves. Women generally attend to field-work. Before the rains set in, they make holes in the ground with a hoe, and, after dropping in seeds, cover in the earth with their feet. In case of rice, the surface of the ground is turned up with a narrow spade. After the rains the grain is ripe, and the tops are cut off. When the natives have not separate store-huts of their own, they keep their corn in large rush-baskets raised upon stakes outside the village; and these stores are not violated by their fellow-townsmen. The grain is beaten or trodden out of the husks, and then winnowed in the wind. The women pound it into meal or flour with a pestle nearly five feet long, the ordinary mortar containing about two gallons. This is a most laborious process, and occupies many hours of the day or night.

After gratifying, if not satisfying, the curiosity of Samba's wives, we thought it right that a return should be made by their explaining to us their mode of dressing food, especially the celebrated kooskoos. This was cheerfully done, the more so as we presented them with small articles of tinselled finery. The flour is moistened with water, then shaken and stirred in a calabash until it forms into small hard granules like peppercorns, which will keep good for a long time if preserved in a dry place. The poorer class wet this prepared grain with hot water until it swells like rice; others steam it in an earthen pot with holes, which is placed above another containing flesh and water, so that the flavour of the meat makes the kooskoos savoury. We saw a dish of this kind in preparation for our dinner, along with other stews of a daintier kind, made of rice boiled with milk and dried fish, or with butter and meat, not forgetting vegetables and condiments. Some, of these stews, when well prepared, are not to be despised.