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148 Stana Nenadic
a lifestyle that required limited outdoor walking. Even in big towns, pave-
ments were rare before the 1770s and to walk down the street required pro-
tective overshoes – either clogs or patterns – particularly for women, whose
shoes were often made of fabric.
53
Patie’s red-heeled shoes also highlight the importance of colour and in par-
ticular red for special or high status clothing. Young women of fashion wore
scarlet cloaks, as indicated in the inventory of Joan Robins, wife of a weaver
in Glasgow, who died in 1760 (see Appendix). In Glasgow mid-century the
wealthy tobacco lords, a business clique with a well-developed sense of their
own importance, were said by contemporaries to have a regular promenade
at the ‘cross’, ‘which they trod in long scarlet cloaks and bushy wigs’.
54
In
addition to their clothing, the wigs of these Atlantic merchants were also very
distinct. Through much of the eighteenth century gentlemen and well-paid
labouring men wore wigs to signal their propriety and respectability. Wigs
were costly to buy and also required wig powder for dressing, to keep them
white and free from infestations, which was expensive because it was taxed.
55
As a symbol of the elite, wigs were sometimes targeted by mobs, as in the ‘lev-
elling’ disturbances of the early eighteenth century. For a man to loose his wig,
or go wigless in public was to invite ridicule. This is indicated by John Galt in
his comic novel of local political life in the eighteenth century, The Provost,
when the whole town council, in a state of drunkenness following a celebra-
tory dinner, are persuaded to burn their wigs as a statement of loyalty. Only
Provost Pawkie, the narrator, saves face by sending home for his spare wig:
It was observed by the commonality, when we sallied forth to go home, that I had
on my wig, and it was thought I had a very meritorious command of myself, and
was the only man in the town fi t for a magistrate . . .
56
Food and drink also carried powerful symbolic messages. Edward
Topham’s, Letters from Edinburgh, published in 1776, included many descrip-
tions of food. He referred in disparaging terms to a special meal comprising
haggis, ‘a display of oatmeal, and sheep’s liver and lights’, with ‘cocky-leaky’,
a broth comprising a chicken boiled with leeks. There was also a sheep’s
head and a ‘Solan goose’. The latter had a ‘strong, oily, unpalatable fl avour’,
but there were other ‘Scottish dishes’ that he did enjoy, including ‘cabbi-
clow’, ‘barley-broth’ and ‘friars chicken’:
The fi rst is cod-fi sh salted for a short time, and not dried in the manner of common
salt-fi sh, and boiled with parsley and horse-radish. They eat it with egg sauce, and
it is extremely luscious and palatable. Barley-broth is beef stewed with a quantity
of pearl barley and greens of different sorts; and the other is chicken cut into small
pieces, and boiled with parsley, cinnamon, and eggs in strong beef soup.
57
He went on to remark, ‘plenty of good claret and agreeable conversation
made up other defi ciencies’.
58
Many observed the heavy drinking culture
that prevailed in Scotland, even among elite women:
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