One after another houses rich in historical associations and of a character that rendered the Old Town of Edinburgh remarkable, are being swept away by our Improvement Trustees. Their disappearance, while undoubtedly required for the sake of the sanitary welfare of their neighbourhoods, must excite in the minds of many a twinge of regret on several accounts; and as in the case of remarkable men, we cannot suffer their removal from the places that knew them so long to take place without directing attention to their distinctive features and history. A tenement that would be a fit subject for antiquarian research is being levelled with the ground at present in the Nether Bow. It was one of the finest specimens of a class of houses which extended nearly the whole length of the High Street in former times--having wooden fronts projecting four or five feet in front of the masonry, thus giving the erection a more pasteboard appearance than the labourers who pull them down find to be in reality the case. While glass was still a luxury, and light to be enjoyed had to be sought for outside the dwelling, the old Edinburgh citizen, when building his house, took care to erect in front of its windows a wooden balcony, resting on sturdy pillars, that rose to the edge of the roof. Thus a piazza was formed on the ground floor under which the wares of the shop-keepers of the period were exposed, and a series of galleries above, where the burghers would step out from their houses of an evening to enjoy the air, and particularly the light, while watching the passers-by below, and where their children would play when the rain made the street not so agreeable for that purpose. In course of time, when glass came generally into use, the front of these balconies was boarded up and pierced with windows, and in many cases the shops below advanced a step, so as to keep flush with the frontage above. Hence the singular appearance of many of these tenements. Of this class was the old Excise Office. Its front was somewhat ornamental. Neat wooden pilasters divided the windows from each other. At its eastern corner, immediately below Baron Grant’s Close, an outside stair that projected into the street before the alteration we describe led to a spiral stair, over the door leading to which was the pious inscription, “Devs Benedictat,” and the date 1606. From this it would seem that the building was anything but new when taken possession of by the Hanoverian Excisemen. It is probable that it lodged more gentle persons and people who were held in better estimation than the officials that were regarded as the detested fruit of the Union. They took possession of the premises soon after that event in our history, stuck up the Royal arms on the face of the building, and set themselves to levy duty on the merchandise that entered the city by its principal gate, the Nether Port, the then direct avenue from the neighbouring seaport. Since George the Second’s