A City of Many Hopes

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17835, 1 May 1926, Page 19 (Supplement)

A City of Many Hopes

Bonni, —and Busy—D u ndee. JS IT. NOT remarkable that Dundeeremote from orange gropes, should have established herself as the metropolis of marmalade? It. is all a question of grit, enterprise, understanding of markets, and the fruits of the South owe most of their prosperity to the busy workers on the Tay. This certainly applies to the bitter oranges of Seville, which have no other destination than our breakfast tables. Dundee is always drawing her bows at a venture. Trade after trade has been taken up, and she has alwa\ r s known when to drop them. Some say her name comes from the herring, others from the Gaelic word for bonny —and her motto is Donum Dei, the gift of GodAnd that gift is adaptability. The making of bonnets—those dour caps of our Highlands—was for a while the staple industry, but it was soon up with the bonnets of Bonny Dundee, and such as still are required come from Paisley, better known for no less antiquated shawls. The Whaler’s Port. Dundee turned from head to foot and made glittering ornaments for shoes, until she was cut out by the steel-sharpers of Sheffield. Then glassblowing was tried, and we may still see a place called “The Bottle Works.” Candle-making, leather-tanning, sugarrefining. all had their turns but faded away. Dundee, however, remains the chief port for sealers and whalers, and before the days of gas whale-fishing was of enormous importance. If the ships returned from Greenland “clean” or but partly filled, the price of oil rose immediately, and during those long northern nights poor workers had perforce to sit in darkness. Weaving has lasted longest, relying originally on hemp and flax imported from the Baltic. Now jute comes from India, so Dundee makes packingcloth, sacking, grain-bags, and a kind of carpet. On drawing near to the town by land or sea the striking feature is the jute works of all sorts, the tall chimneys of every shape and form, and the \*ast spinning mills, warehouses, and The Tree of Liberty. There is some talk of the centre of the jute industry shifting to Calcutta, the Mecca of all bright young Dundee lads, who set off in \'Outh and return in middle-age, liverish but real nabobs, with ample pockets well lined with money. Their palaces are to be found clustered all along the Tay from Invergowrie to Montrose. But Dundee’s mills, including, the enormous “Cox’s Stalk” and “Baxter’s Mill” (whose size has been enshrined in local parlance as the term for the double six in dominoes), are still hard at work, and Dundee will probably remain Juteopolis for many } r ears. Somehow, Dundee survives and prospers. It is not very long ago that she had an infamous sanitary reputation, worse even than that of old Edinburgh. The houses were piled one above another; long, dark, narrow closes or entries led to sunless, airless, waterless courts. There was hardly any water t supply. Now, however, there is a plentiful and excellent supply from great reservoirs ten miles away, and other comforts exist sufficient for frugal folk. Not only the commerce but the politics of Dundee are affected by an ever-changing atmosphere. Poems and traditions suggest Jacobites and toasts over the water; elections point to the prohibition of liquor. A characteristic touch is provided by the Tree of Liberty, which may still be seen and watered in the pavemesnt of the grounds of Belmont House. It was, as a twig, planted by a crowd of sympathisers with the French Revolution, and the Provost was forced to run round it, shouting, “Liberty and equality for ever!” The Council had it removed to the Thieves’ Hole, but it was rescued and brought back to the place where it now survives. This Thieves’ Hole, a condemned cell, is one of the few remnants of old Dundee, and must have been a frightful geonAt the Town House, known as The Pillars, the chief resort of convivial Dundonians, we may peep into cells, horrible cells, where culprits and debtors were confined, and we may examine the “Locket Book,” with records of burgesses at the time of the Battle of Flodden. The vault which formed the main avenue from the harbour to the town when Dr Johnson visited Dundee can still be seen. But there is a modern spirit abroad in Bonny Dundee. Old buildings have been cleared away to make room for a new City Hall on the Greenrnarket. One of the sights of Dundee is the ruins of a railway, one of the very earliest constructed in the United Kingdom, from Dundee to Newtyle, a distance of twelve miles. It was an • odd series of engineering blunders. It J began with an inclined plane: a ] stationary engine drew the train about half-way up a hill, through a tunnel, along a short level, and foi 4 a long time the railway “ended nowhere.” 1