Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
to him had to testify that "he conveyed him home to his own house, as
he had done many a night besides that."
There were many picturesque little incidents in the whole affair. Thus
we are told by one witness, in a very pathetic strain, of abortive
efforts made by the Sheriff to go through the public market-place from
one tavern to another. "In a little the Sheriff and the deponent came
down to go to the New Inn; and upon the Sheriff's observing that there
were too many people upon the exchange, and that he was too far gone
in liquor to cross the street, he turned in again to John Bain's, and
afterwards made another attempt of the same kind, and returned for the
same reason; and a little after two o'clock they made a third attempt,
and, observing that the exchange was thin of people, they went over to
the New Inn." Discreet Sheriff--he had achieved the Greek sage's
problem of knowing himself! But other people knew him, too; and thus
the hostess of the inn, being asked if "when Shiels was once drunk, he
did not keep in a hand--that is, he continued drunk for some days,"
answered, that "she has observed Shiels as in drink at one time and to
continue so for several days after, and that was too commonly his
case; that it is her opinion, when Shiels was in liquor, by flattering
of his vanity, he might be very easily induced to do things which he
would not otherwise do; and the deponent has had occasion to see
several instances of this sort, by which she means that she has heard
Shiels, when in liquor, promise to do things which she believes he
would not have done if sober; nor does the deponent remember or know
that ever Shiels did do any of these things when sober that he said he
would do when in liquor."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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