SANQUHAR COUNCIL HOUSE. SOME QUEER STORIES OF THE OLD The old Council House of Sanquhar with its imposing stairway, its tower and clock, is the object that most attracts the attention of strangers on their first making acquaintance with the ancient royal burgh. It is a good specimen of the Scottish townhouse and tolbooth of bygone days, and from its post at the head of the High Street has, for close upon one hundred and seventy years, kept watch, as it were, over the affairs of the town. Round it cluster much that goeth to the making of local history; it is the very core of municipal life; the scene of many a bitter contention for power, of angry disputations, of uproarious elections, as well as of harmless merrymakings and tumultuous festivities on days of national rejoicing. It was built in the year 1735, and occupies the site of an older building devoted to similar public uses. Regarding the older tolbooth, not much is known beyond the fact that for years before it was removed to make room for the present Council House it was a in a ruinous condition. Application for assistance in putting it into proper repair was made to the Royal Convention of Burghs in 1682; and in a curious book entitled "Northern Memoirs," by Richard Franck, published in London in 1694, is a reference to the tolbooth, which shows that repairs were badly needed indeed. Franck, who had stayed one night in Sanquhar, says: "There is a kind of thing they call a Tolbooth, which at first might be suspected prison, because it is so like one; whose decays by the law of antiquity are such, that every prisoner is threatened with death before his trial; and every casement, because bound about with iron bars, discovers the entertainment destined only to felons.' This old building, destitute of any ornamentation, was two stories high, and thatched with heather. The present Council House was, as I have said, erected in 1735, and is built principally of stones taken from Sanquhar Castle, then being dismantled by the Duke of Queensberry. The architect was William Adams of Edinburgh, and the builder George Laurie, at that time Deacon of the Sanquhar Incorporation of Squaremen (i.e., masons and wrights). It is a stately old edifice, and of great strength. The outside stair leads to the Council Chambers and Court-room; beneath are the old prison cells, and, on the south side a room long used as a school, all the lower portion now being used as storerooms. A room over the Council chamber, access to which is gained from the clock tower, was used for the imprisonment of debtors. All are strongly built, the cells on the ground floor having arched ashlar vaults, windows secured with strong iron bars, doors made of heavy oaken board, lined with iron and thickly studded with large round headed nails. Three of the cells are fitted with fireplaces-the debtors' room, and the inner cells under the 'Thief's cell Hole"-the the Court-room; but in name given to the double on the ground floor beneath the tower, no such comfort was provided. A cold, miserable place it must have been, and it was only used for prisoners incarcerated for grave offences. Happily the accommodation thus provided for evildoers was at no time found insufficient; indeed, towards the close of the eighteenth century, during one of the oft-recurring times of scarcity, two cells were fitted up as a meal-market for the supply of oat-meal at a cheap rate to the townspeople, many of whom were at times in a state bordering on starvation. It is over sixty years since the old prison was used as a place of detention, misdoers being now sent to the county prison in Dumfries. Some twenty years ago when some alterations were being made at the police lock-up, the "Thief's Hole" was temporarily fitted up for the accommodation of culprits; this was the last occasion on which it did duty as a prison. Affixed to the wall of the Council House, by the side of the prison door at the corner facing down the High Street, is an upright iron bar or staple on which is a strong iron ring. This is the instrument of punishment known as the "jougs;" it bears a close relation to the English pillory and stocks, and was used for the punishment of persons found guilty of petty thefts. An iron chain attached to the ring encircled the neck of the prisoner, and was securely locked by a padlock; and the culprit thus fastened was exposed to the gibes and insults of the populace, who, if the prisoner happened to have given grave public offence, not infrequently pelted him with |