Below is the full version of a piece we reproduced in Spurtle Issue 307. It is from the Scotsman, 18 September 1897.

The aesthetics of bill-sticking have been discussed by all sorts of Cockburn Associations, art congresses, and professional and dilettante bodies that exist for the purpose of telling the public when its sensibilities ought to be shocked by exhibitions of the inartistic and the unrefined. It has been left for a member of the Sanitary Institute to show that bill-sticking has its ethical or moral aspect.

As you read this, advance copies of the June Spurtle are already finding their way into shops, bars, homes, and recycling bins across Broughton and beyond.

Page 1 begins with a doggie, a Dougray, and diversions. It continues with a missing candidate, cluster rumbles, and a fight for the right to enjoy a tight squeeze.

EDINBURGH COUNCILLOR’S ROMANCE

In the Court of Session on Tuesday, before Lord Low, evidence was led in an action by Euphemia Cumming Montgomery, 3 Hope Street, Portobello, and Annie Gall Montgomery, her daughter, against Peter Purves, of Messrs D. Purves & Co., plumbers, 12 Rose Street, Edinburgh, the next-of-kin of the late David Purves, who resided at 66 Haymarket Terrace, Edinburgh, and against David Purves’s trustees.

‘SHAKE THINGS UP A BIT, WHAT?’

The mysterious depths of 38 Queen Street are explained in plans associated with a proposal to convert part of the ground floor at H&T Pawnbrokers into a two-bedroom flat (21/02806/LBC).

Readers will remember the tragic case of Mhari O’Neill, the 15-year-old Edinburgh woman whose body was discovered on Calton Hill on 8 December 2018.

Today at the High Court in Edinburgh, 20-year-old Ewan Fulton pled guilty to her culpable homicide.

A Police Scotland press release this afternoon gave details. We reprint them unedited below.

A CONTUMACIOUS PRISONER.

A woman named Elizabeth Igo was brought to the bar of Edinburgh Police Court to-day, charged with being drunk and disorderly in West Register Street last night. She pleaded guilty, and 57 previous convictions were libelled against her.

Sheriff Guy said: I wish you could suggest some punishment that would make you better. The prisoner asked for another chance, and the Sheriff pointed out that she had got 57 chances already. He imposed a sentence of twenty-one days’ imprisonment.

Living in a World Heritage Site, we tend – rightly – to focus on the preservation and restoration of its finest features.

But sometimes, the weathering and distress of our environs, including its more prosaic elements, has a poignant charm all of its own.

This Corporation lamppost on Calton Road is a case in point.

1904

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A LIFETIME WITH ONE FIRM.

The above is a portrait of Mr George Sime, who passed away Wednesday last at the ripe age of 83.

He has had the long connection of 67 years with the firm James Gray & Son, ironmongers, &c., George Street, going first as a boy to James Gray, locksmith, York Lane (the original founder of the business).

Standard Life Aberdeen’s ‘Giving Back to Green Spaces’ project has chosen Hopetoun Crescent Garden as one of four pilot schemes to increase local bio-diversity, regenerate park areas, and increase community engagement.

Friends of Hopetoun Crescent Garden (FHCG) will receive a grant plus support from a business mentor and potentially some ‘volunteers-day’ assistance.

The Friends will work with Edinburgh City Council, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and other organisations such as the Woodland Trust to maximise this opportunity.