Page:Annals of Duddingston and Portobello.pdf/58

Rh seven watchmen were employed in this duty, so that altogether a staff of not less than 120 men was required to collect the tax on an indispensable commodity which is now sold free of duty. The Joppa Pans were included under the Prestonpans district - the River Tyne forming the eastern boundary and the Figgate Burn the western, the custom-house being at Prestonpans. At Joppa and Magdalene Pans the excessive duties led to a great deal of smuggling of salt into the north of England; for high as was the duty imposed in Scotland, it was much heavier across the Border, and the salt being consequently higher in price, there was a strong inducement to smuggle it into England in competition with English produce.

The hawking of salt at one time gave occupation to many poor people, mostly females. These went daily through the streets of Edinburgh and neighbourhood, and were nearly as numerous as the fishwives, trudging with heavy loads from Pinkie, or Prestonpans, or Joppa. The price of salt at the Pans, where they purchased a supply for the day, was, towards the end of last century, threepence halfpenny a peck - about seven pounds weight, which they retailed at sixpence a caup - a wooden measure one-fourth of a peck. In consequence of the repeal of the duty on salt, this trade has long since ceased, and the cry, so common of old in the streets, "Wha’ll buy sa-at" or "Wha'll buy my lucky forpit o’ sa-at,” is a thing of the past.

Referring to his father’s residence as manager of Joppa Pans in 1815, where, he says, "he suffered a species of, ignominious banishment,” William Chambers mentions that the business in itself violated all his father’s notions of propriety. "It consisted,” he says, "almost wholly in supplying, material for a contraband trade across the Border to England; the high duties on salt in the latter country rendering this a profitable traffic. Purchased in large quantities at Joppa and other salt works, the bags were transferred in carts to Newcastleton in Liddesdale, where the article was stored by a dealer, and sold by him to be smuggled across the Fells during the night. For years this was a great trade. Perhaps it did not pertain to the Scotch salt makers to urge the extinction of so flourishing a traffic; but neither could any one of susceptible feelings look upon it with perfect complacency.” A respectable community may easily be corrupted and their sense of legal right and wrong blunted by excessive fiscal