It may seem rather late, on the 12th of January 1843, to report the proceedings of an evening spent in October of the previous year; but, except with a view to record the speeches delivered upon the occasion, of which the subject-matter will be found to be one of enduring interest, the present pamphlet is submitted to the public, more as an attempt at a practical treatise on the well-being of the labouring classes, than as the mere report of a particular festival. Its main object is to embody, within a limited compass, and in a comparatively cheap publication, a number of facts and observations of the highest importance to the welfare of those whom such institutions as the Gild are intended to benefit, as well as to the happiness of the community at large, and which now require to be gleaned from more expensive books, or such as are not likely to come under the notice of the many. A perusal of those facts and remarks will, it is hoped, prove, if not instructive, at least interesting in its

way, to those who love to be engaged in promoting the comforts of others. Should it tend, in the smallest degree, to awaken public attention to the numberless evils entailed upon society, from the unheeded nuisances, physical and moral, with which we are surrounded, as well as point out a way, even to their partial removal, the Editor will have attained his purpose. No liberty has been taken with any of the Speeches; they are given as they appeared in the newspapers of the day, or as they have since been revised by the speakers themselves, and transmitted to the Editor. It is scarcely necessary to add that the present pamphlet is, for the most part, but a compilation of what has either been said or written before, as the following pages will speak for themselves.

CONTENTS.

REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE GILD FESTIVAL, WITH

NOTES CONFIRMATORY OF THE FACTS ALLUDED TO IN SEVERAL

OF THE SPEECHES,

Page

APPENDIX.

I.

THE EDINBURGH GILD CONSIDERED AS A BENEFIT SOCIETY,

III

Summary of the Revised Rules of the Holy Gild of St

Joseph,

II.

LETTER FROM W. CHAMBERS, ESQ., TO THE RIGHT REV.

BISHOP GILLIS,

XVII

XXV

SECT. I. On the Sanitary Condition of the Old Town of

Edinburgh,

II. Public Arrangements External to Residences,

by which the Sanitary Condition of the

Labouring Population is Affected,

III. Circumstances of Internal Economy, Affecting

the Health of the Labouring Classes,

XXXVI

XLVII

LXIII

IV. Pecuniary Burdens created by the neglect of

Sanitary Measures,

V. State of the existing Law in Scotland as regards

the abatement of Nuisances and the Protection

of Public Health,

LXXI

LXXXVIII

VI. A Brief Outline of the Charitable Society re-

cently established in France, under the name

of the Society of St Vincent de Paul,

SPECIMEN OF THE CERTIFICATE AWARDED BY THE HOLY GILD
TO THE SUCCESSFUL COMPETITORS FOR THE CLEANEST
AND TIDIEST-KEPT HOUSES.

CI

THE

FIRST ANNUAL FESTIVAL

OF

THE HOLY GILD OF ST JOSEPH.

THE First Annual Festival of this Society was celebrated at Edinburgh, in the Waterloo Rooms, on Friday the 21st October 1842.

At six o'clock P.M., the PRIZE-ROOM was thrown open for the inspection of the Company. In this apartment were displayed the various articles of useful and appropriate furniture to be awarded by the Gild at the choice of its successful competitors, as Premiums for the cleanest and tidiest kept houses. The different articles, consisting of bedsteads, chests of drawers, tables, chairs, kitchen utensils, fire-irons, clocks, crockery, crystal, blanketing, bed, table, and body linen, chintzes, carpeting, &c., were so arranged in separate lots, that they could be easily inspected, and presented altogether a most pleasing sight. All the more so, that this accession of domestic comfort to the too often cheerless dwellings of the more humble classes, rose up before one, not as a delightful novelty only, but as if modestly boasting of an interest peculiarly its own-it had been called into existence by such previously acquired habits of order and cleanli

A