Page:Origin and history of Glasgow Streets.djvu/14

, opened in 1808. It had been church lands, and the market for salt was for a time located in it.

, named for the river of that name in Dumbartonshire.

. Pen in common parlance means to coop up or confine. In the present instance, in East-end vernacular it is a big close or passage. Thus a close was generally taken to be a passage about five feet wide, but a pen close was always considered to be wide enough for the passage of a horse and cart. Allan's Pen however, so far as the writer can remember from the remnant of it remaining in his day, through which he has passed many a time, would be about eight feet by eight. It was virtually a subway or tunnel, the side walls of stone and arched with brick, extending from the south-east exit of Glasgow Green to Rutherglen Bridge, and was constructed by Alexander Allan of Newhall to give him unbroken access from his demesne to the river. This was done by turfing over the erection. It was an outrage on the public rights, but no action was taken as happened later in the Harvey's Dyke case. But the river coming down in high flood with broken ice during the ensuing winter destroyed the greater part of the structure, on seeing which the proprietor made only half-hearted efforts at repair. Meantime his action had incensed the Bridgeton people, who were at that period mostly employed as hand-loom weavers and nearly all strongly imbued with Radical ideas. The result was that every one became Mr. Allan's enemy, and he, while largely interested in the sugar trade of the West Indies, was also a manufacturer in the city and gave out webs to be woven. In this he was boycotted, as the weavers declined to work to him, even at increased rates. This was the first check that his arrogant and over bearing attitude to the public got. But coming events cast their shadows before, and worse was in store for him, as a year or two later a panic in the Indian cotton market, simultaneous with a big drop in sugar, led him to do some very foolish things, which ultimately caused him to take flight to Ireland, which was then, as America became later on, the receptacle of the greater number of those who left their country for their country's good. He never returned, dying there in 1809. The mansion of