Our murkey past?

[Ian Newman <books1@iinet.net.au>]

Some on the list have expressed the view that wealthy people avoiding
conviction is a late development - not so, if the display at the Police
Museum on Princes Street, Edinburgh is to be believed...... herewith a
transcript copied from my video footage taken in April:
  
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                              U N R U L Y    C I T Y 

Police work is always challenging but until the end of the 19th Century, it
could be particularly volatile.

For instance, in the 1770s "General" Joe Smith could raise a crowd of
10,000 angry citizens in ten minutes.  On one occasion the Mob "persuaded"
traders to slash the price of grain.

Even earlier, in 1595 the boys of Edinburgh High School were upset when
their holidays were not extended.  They occupied their school and in a
confrontation, Baillie John MacMocane was shot dead by William Sinclair.
At the King's wish Sinclair and seven others were aquitted - because, many
believe they came from wealthy families.  The schoolboy who killed a city
dignitary eventually became Sir William Sinclair of Mey.

In later years, during the snowball riots, students pelted the citizens and
police with snowballs and, in the Trade Riots, business people rescued a
fellow trader convicted of committing adultery, before he could be wheeled
around the city, bound and gagged.
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Anyhow, that's the gospel according to the Police Museum.

Does it tally with our own Clan records?

Anyone descended from Sir Billy?  (not compulsory)

What next?  "Sir O.J., of the diminutive glove" ?       (-:

Cheers,

Ian in Oz
where nobody believes a word our elected "leaders" tell us!
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