Congregations Have Fallen Away And Come To Nothing, And
It Is A General Remark That Nothing Is So Fatal To A Sect As A Liberal
Endowment, Which Provides For The Celebration Of Public Worship Without
Individual Contributions.
Letter XXIII.
The Scottish Lakes.
Glasgow, _July_ 19, 1845.
I must not leave Scotland without writing you another letter.
On the 17th of this month I embarked at Newhaven, in the environs of
Edinburgh, on board the little steamer Prince Albert, for Stirling. On our
way we saw several samples of the Newhaven fishwives, a peculiar race,
distinguished by a costume of their own; fresh-colored women, who walk the
streets of Edinburgh with a large wicker-basket on their shoulders, a
short blue cloak of coarse cloth under the basket, short blue petticoats,
thick blue stockings, and a white cap. I was told that they were the
descendants of a little Flemish colony, which long ago settled at
Newhaven, and that they are celebrated for the readiness and point of
their jokes, which, like those of their sisters of Billingsgate, are not
always of the most delicate kind. Several of these have been related to
me, but on running them over in my mind, I find, to my dismay, that none
of them will look well on paper. The wit of the Newhaven fishwives seems
to me, however, like that of our western boatmen, to consist mainly in
the ready application of quaint sayings already current among themselves.
It was a wet day, with occasional showers, and sometimes a sprinkling of
Scotch mist.
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