e money, I proposed that we should allot it
to three classes--those who were destitute; those who had some help, but
large families; and those to whom a temporality would be sufficient--and
that we should make a visitation to the houses of all the sufferers, in
order to class them under their proper heads aright. By this method, and
together with what I had done personally in the tempest, I got great
praise and laud from all reflecting people; and it is not now to be told
what a consolation was brought to many a sorrowful widow and orphan's
heart, by the patience and temperance with which the fund of liberality
was distributed; yet because a small sum was reserved to help some of the
more helpless at another time, and the same was put out to interest in
the town's books, there were not wanting evil-minded persons who went
about whispering calumnious innuendos to my disadvantage; but I know, by
this time, the nature of the world, and how impossible it is to reason
with such a seven-headed and ten-horned beast as the multitude. So I
said nothing; only I got the town-clerk's young man, who acted as clerk
to the committee of the subscription, to make out a fair account of the
distribution of the money, and to what intent the residue had been placed
in the town-treasurer's hand; and this I sent unto a friend in Glasgow to
get printed for me, the which he did; and when I got the copies, I
directed one to every individual subscriber, and sent the town-drummer an
end's errand with them, which was altogether a proceeding of a method and
exactness so by common, that it not only quenched the envy of spite
utterly out, but contributed more and more to give me weight and
authority with the community, until I had the whole sway and mastery of
the town.

CHAPTER XXVI--OF THE PUBLIC LAMPS

Death is a great reformer of corporate bodies, and we found, now and
then, the benefit of his helping hand in our royal burgh. From the time
of my being chosen into the council; and, indeed, for some years before,
Mr Hirple had been a member, but, from some secret and unexpressed
understanding among us, he was never made a bailie; for he was not liked;
having none of that furthy and jocose spirit so becoming in a magistrate
of that degree, and to which the gifts of gravity and formality make but
an unsubstantial substitute. He was, on the contrary, a queer and
quistical man, of a small stature of body, with an outshot breast, the
which,