At the union of the parishes of Larbert and Dunipace, the population of each parish was small, and that of Larbert considerably the least. The establishment of the iron-works at Carron has changed matters entirely. By the census taken about the year 1790, the Rev. G. Harvey, minister, makes the population about 400 souls. It appears, however, to have been but loosely done, as he takes the census of adults, and allows a percentage for children under age. By the census of 1831, which was carefully managed, the population was found to be 4262 souls. There is no reason to believe, that there was any great increase during the period between the two census; but since 1831, there has been more appearance of augmentation.

The heritors are the only persons of independent fortune residing in the parish, of whom there are seven who are resident usually or occasionally.

There are 710 inhabited houses, and 38 buildings, or under thorough repair.

In the parish, there are six insane, and as many deaf and dumb persons.

Language.-The language of the working~class has been much improved within the last twenty years, i.e. it has become some thing more like the modern written dialect of English. There is still a coarseness of expression, which is too general. In cleanliness, a more marked improvement has taken place. The people are better lodged and better clothed. The luxury of the midden²¹ is still indulged in, but it has given place, in a great many instances, to the flower-plot. We are often delighted by seeing the labourer or handicraft-man amusing himself with the easy toil of tending his flowers after his day's work. The agricultural peasantry are unchanged in their diet, which is full and wholesome, save by the use of pig-flesh, which has become very general, and thus a supply of kitchen is secured at an easy rate. Among the manufacturing people, wheat bread is in very general use, but among the landward folk, the oat-cake, and occasionally scones of barley and potatoes, have the preference. The use of butcher-meat²² has greatly increased during the last ten years.

Poaching is common, especially hare-snaring.

The game of curling is keenly pursued by the farmers, masons, and such others as are impeded in their work by hard frost. The colliers play at quoits, and also at long bowls, which consists in hurling a four or six pound shot along the high road, to the occasional annoyance of the passenger.

Before the establishment of the Carron iron-works, the parish was thinly peopled, and the population consisted of a few country people, who grazed some cattle and ploughed a small portion of the land. Their food consisted chiefly of oatmeal, barley meal, ²³ and milk, potatoes being at that time unknown in the country.

Seventy years ago, viz. about 1760, just before the establishment of the Carron Iron works, the surface of the parish had a different appearance from that which it now has. It was then a poor district, very little of it ploughed, and that little ill cultivated. Farming(, was in a rude state, as well as other mechanical arts. The roads were bad, and no attention was paid to the art of road-making. The land was almost all uninclosed. In one place, namely, in the lands of Broomage, that awkward mode of farm management called ruling was in practice, that is to say, the lands of Broomage belonged to three owners conjointly, and the arable part was allotted by them, so that the 1st ridge was ploughed and cultivated by the joint owner A, the second ridge by the joint owner B, the third by C, the fourth by A, and so oil. This was done with the intention that each owner might have an equal share of the arable part of the ground, and also that the arable part lying all together might be more conveniently protected from cattle. In 1776, the three joint owners agreed to make a division of these lands into three parts equal to each other in value, and that each owner should have one of these thirds. This being accomplished under the superintendence of an arbiter, the system of rural cultivation ceased.

As there were no inclosures, the cattle were kept from trespassing on the corn by a boy or girl as a cowherd.¹⁹ The children at the age of seven or eight were sent out to this occupation, and thus they began the world. It was certainly a more healthful employment than that which falls to the lot of the cotton factory children of the present day, who are condemned by fate to make their first steps in this valley of tears, confined all day in the unwholesome dusty air of a close room.

An inhabitant of the parish in the old bygone times did his work leisurely and at his ease, much in the same way as a gentle-man works who takes care not to fatigue himself. But now-a-days, the population of Great Britain is more crowded, and consequently men must work harder to earl) their daily bread and to obtain other necessaries of life. In compensation, the workman of the present day has more of the conveniences of life; he is better lodged, better fed, and better clothed than the countryman of the former period.

The parish is now all enclosed and cultivated, the roads good, the population considerable ill number, and many pieces of ground are covered with rows of houses, inhabited chiefly by workmen employed at the Carron Iron-works, such as moulders, furnace-men, carters, &c There are also a number of nailers in the parish not connected with the Carron Iron-works.

Thus we see that the inhabitants of this part of the country, (and the same may be said of all Scotland,) were in former times rather poor, but some progress had even then been made in wealth, during the last 370 years, viz. since the year 1390.

At that time, the inhabitant of Scotland, even of the Lowlands, was scarcely possessed of any of the conveniences which are produced by arts and industry, by means of which men in a more civilized state of society try to make life tolerable ; he therefore, of necessity, endured and tolerated life with the less complicated means which were within his reach, and without the aid of any machines or artisans, but the very rudest. Cattle was the chief produce, and some barley and oats were grown.²⁰ On the sea coast, there were but a few sailors and trading vessels.

Every manufactured article, such as leather, bridles, saddles, and all iron instruments and geer, were imported ready made from Flanders. They could scarcely make a horse shoe. Horses were scarce and dear. This part of the world is not like many places in India, where the soil and climate produce different kinds of grain, bananas, cocoa-nuts, and other kinds of food, with little labour. Our soil and climate are unfavourable to the production of grain, and it is only by means of great labour that grain can be ripened. The chief natural and indigenous production useful to mankind, is black-cattle.

At the period of which we are speaking, about 1390, the inhabitants were altogether without industry ; very little of the ground was in tillage. They were in a state of wild inactivity. They had no disposition to mechanism, no dexterity in practical mechanics and carpentry, or the conversion of hides into leather, as the Russian boors have. They had no skill to extract metal from the clay ironstone and lead ore which some parts of the country contain. They had not the knowledge nor experience necessary for working the pit-coal. They were unable to make the manufactured articles which they needed. They got them, therefore, from Flanders, but they could only get them in small quantities because they had very little to give to the merchant, and therefore would receive little from him. They went to market possessed of but very scanty means of buying, for all they had to give in exchange consisted in some ox hides. Few or no other articles of export could be afforded by the ill-cultivated country, raw climate, and inhabitants without industry and harassed by war.*

The population of Scotland contained only it few individuals devoted to-mechanical arts, and those of the most ordinary kind, and which are necessary even to the poorest and rudest nations. It contained no workmen bred to mining, to working in metals, to making of woollen cloth, of linen, of leather, to the production of grain and cattle in a great way, and no capital nor capitalists to pay the wages of such workmen, to pay for the formation of young workmen, and to sell the produce of their work. To say that the country was without mechanical artists and without capital, is to say that it contained no manufactures, for artists and capitalists are the constituent parts of a manufactory

*Here is the account Froissart gives of Scotland, during this old order of things about 1390, in the reign of Robert, King of Scotland, and when Richard II was King of England. Froissart, born at Valenciennes, lived at that time, and had visited Scotland.

Haindebourg † (est) Ia souveraine ville d'Escoce .......... Car lot Escocoit lea avoyent tauvees et chaceet aux forets,

(these beasts were, no doubt, Cattle of the ox species, which species is probably indigenous, and an inhabitant of the Country since a remote period when mankind had not yet got a footing on this part of the earth's surface. It is possible also that some sheep were reared in some parts of the south of Scotland, at the period of which Froisasrt speaks. The sheep thrives tolerably well In some cold countries, for example Shetland and Iceland.)

L'Admiral (do France messire Jehan de Vienne) et lea barons et let chevallers qui ...... .. nolle doree."

Thus translated by Sir Johan Boorchier, Knight, Lord Berners.

-"Edinborowe(is) the cheif town in Scotlande, and where the kyng (Robert) in time

of peace (In the French copy it is, ' when in that part of the country,') most commonly lay.. For Edinborow, though the kynge hold there his chefe resydence, and that it- Is Parys in Scotland, yet it nat lyke Tourney or Valencenes, for in all that town there is nat four thoosande houses... In Scotlande ye shall find no man lightly of honour nor gentylnesse, they be lyke wylde and savage people: they will be with no man acquainted and are greatly envious of the honour or profyte of any other man:

sad they doubt ever to lose that they have, for it is a poor countre: and when the Englysshmen maketh any roode or voyage into the countre, as they have done often before this tyme, if they thynke to lyve, they most cause their prouvision and vitayle to follow theym at their backe, for they shall fyndo nethyng in that countre but with moche payne: nor they shall fynd none Iron to showe their horses, nor leddar to make harnes, sadelles, or bridelles: for all such thyngs cometh to them redy made out of Flaunders, and when that provision faileth, there is none to gette in the countre. Whan they (i.e. the Frenchmen) were in Scotlande, and wood ryde, they found horses to dere, for that that was not worthe tenne florins they coude not bye under threescore or a hundred, and yet with moche payne to gette any for money...(and afterwards when they wanted to sell their horses they could find no buyers.) The kynge (Robert) was in the wylde Scottysh, (i. e. the Highlands). . Then came the kynge Robert of Scotland: he had a payre of red bleered eyen. They looked like sendal, which is a red stuff of silk, (i. e- he had a retroversion of the eyelids,-an infirmity to which old age is subject,) and it seemed right well by him that he was no valiant man in armes: it seemed he bad rather lye still than to ryde : he had 9 sons, and they loved well armes. ..The kynge was not in good point to ryde a warfare ...And the kyng (of England, Richard II.) came and lodged in Edinborrow, and there tarryed fyve dayes, and at his departing it was set afyre and brent up clene,^‡ but the castell had no hurt, for it was strong ynough, and well kept.. The Englysshemen spared nother abbeys nor minsters, but set all on fyre. . Thus in lykewise as the Englisshemen dyde in Scotlande, so dyde the Frenchemen and Scottes in the marches of Northumberland and Wales, (i. e. Cymberland the land of the Cymri, now called Cumberland). So the Frenchemen and Scottes returned into Scotlande the same waye they came, and whan they came into Scotlande they found the countrey destroyed; but the people of the countrey dyde sette but lytell thereby, and sayd howe with thre or four poles shortly they would make again their houses, for they hadl saved moche of their cattle in the forests.

- " When the admiral and his company (he had come over to Scotland with about ' 'mille lances tant chevaliers qu'escuyers la fleur de chevalerie et d'escuyerie,' that is to say about 1000 cavalry,) were returned from England and come to Edinborrowes, they had endured great payne, and as then they coude finde nothing to bye for their money (the town of Edinburgh had lately been burned by the English army under Richard II). Wynes they had but lytell, and but small ale or beer, and their bredde was of barley or of otes, and their horses were deede for hunger And the Scottes sayd how the Frenchemen dyde them more domage than the Englisshemen had done; and whan it was demaunded of them why so? they answered and sayde howe the Frenchemen as they rode abrode, they beat down and defoyled their cornes, as whete, barley, and otes (the wheat was no doubt only in a few fertile spots, such as the carse, and some parts of East Lothian, &c.) and would not kepe the highe wayes, but rather ryde through the corn: of which domages they sayde they wolde have of them a trewe recompence or they departed out of Scotland, and sayde howe they shulde nother have shyppe nor maryner to passe them over the see without their leave; and dyvers other knightes and sqoyres complayned thet their wootles were cutte downe by the Frenchemen to make tbem lodgynges .......

........The Yonge Kynge Charles (i.e. Charles VI.) and the Duke of Burgoyne...The admiral said to them how the Scottes somewhat resembled the Englysshmen, because they be envious over strangers; and moreover he sayde that he had rather be Erle of Savoye or Erle of Arthoyse, than be King of Scottes; and sayde how he had seen all the power of Scotland in one day togyder, as the Scottes sayde themselfe, and yet he never saw togyder past 500 speres (i. e. cavalry), and about a xxx thousand other men of war; the which nombre agaynat Englisshe archers, or agaynat a thousande of other good men of armes, coude not long endure. (About seventy years before this, however, the Scotch army had beaten Edward II. and his English archers at Bannockburn in 1313).

† Haidenboorg would be a more reasonable way of writing the name. Edinburgh is from Edwin'sburgh. Edwin was a North-humberland-ian prince, Dun-edin in Gaelic, i.e. the town sod hill-fort of Edwin.

‡ The houses in Edinburgh, about l380, were probably, in great part, constructed of wood, and the roofs covered with branches of trees, with turf, and with straw, some perhaps with fissile sandstone, called in Scotland grey slate. Even in those buildings which form what is now called the Old Town of Edinburgh, many of the fronts of the houses are of wood.

In 1544, Edinburgh was again burnt by the English, and there is an old drawing of a view of Edinburgh, supposed to have been made just before that burning. This drawing is amongst the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum and an exact copy of it is engraved and published in the Bannatyne Miscellany, Edinburgh, 1827. Its this drawing, the roofs in the Canongate are all coloured gray to represent thatch. The roofs in the town are coloured red. 'rids the draftsman may have done ; because in many of the towns in England. with which he nay have been familiar, the roofs have long been, covered with flat tile. But it is probable that tile was not used in Scotland its 1544,‡‡ and that the roofs were usually covered with straw thatch, and some of the better sort of them with thin flags of fissile sandstone. The church of the Abbey of Holyrood had some lead as a covering to the roof. It was the custom formerly to inscribe upon the house the number denoting the year in which it was built Amongst the dates so inscribed on the houses of the old town of Edinburgh, there are not many or none older than about 1591. There was one in the Old Bank Close, south side of the Lawnmarket, a well-built mansion, with the date of 1591 on it.

Edinburgh, altogether, is not an ancient town. It is probably little more than 1000 years since the first fortress was built on the castle rock, and the first dwellings pitched on the adjacent ground. No inscriptions, coins, or other relics of the Romans are found, which shows that on the site which the town now covers, there was no Roman station, and probably no collections of dwelling places of any kind about 450, when the Romans had finally left and given op all connection with Britain. The only relic of the Romans, which might be supposed to belong to Edinburgh, is a pair of beads in base relief, built in the front of a house in the Nether Bow. But these heads have probably been brought from some Roman station in the adjacent country. They may have belonged at one time to a church or monastery, for they have been set up as if to represent Adam and Eve, the inscription plated between them being the doom pronounced on the first man and all his descendants," in sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo," in letters of the black letter form, of perhaps about 1400. Sonic antiquaries consider the beads to be portraits of the Emperor Alexander Severus and his consort.

‡‡ Tile making, brick making, and pottery were scarcely, I should think, amongst the small number of the mechanical arts practised its Scotland in 1544.