He prepared to open his mouth and let rip, Sabbath or not a man had to work. God would understand as he did all things. This public house down by the waterfront was of the lowest sort, in fact more of a drinking den to which the authorities turned a blind eye since it gathered most of the riff-raff from the city under the one roof and left more respectable places free from their unwanted presence. Of course the fact that the mill and foundry workers had been forced, after a strike of protest, to accept a cut of 5 per cent in wages and a simultaneous increase of working hours, then, when the strike was broken, many of them being laid off for their pains, might possibly have had some hand in swelling the ranks of destitution and poverty but it had at least brought the working practices into line with England. That must have been of great comfort to the Scots. And so aided by the cheapest beer and rough spirit men drowned their sorrows, and watched with glazed eyes while the self-styled Premier Poet of Dundee, William McGonagall, thrust a bony right leg forward and launched into verse.
