Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-10
THIS YEARS BUSINESS BAD
Money Panic Here Has Hurt Scotch
City.
IS FOREMOST IN SHIPBUILDING
It's Wealth Started From Virginia's
Tobacco Plantations-Riches
Coal Fields on Earth.
BY WILLIAM r. CURTIS.


Chicago Record Herald
GLASGOW, September 4.-The great
wealth and prosperity of the city of Glas-
gov got it's start from the tobacco plan
tations of Virginia, and two hundred
years ago the merchants of this city Sc
cured what was practically a monopoly
of the sugar trade with the islands of the
West Indies. Glasgow became the great
tobacco and sugar market of Europe. and
controlled those imports until the revolu-
tionary war, when the trade became de-
moralized and was never fully recovered.
Virginia's Governor a Glasconian.
Robert Dinwiddie. Governor of Virginia
from 1852 to 1853 was a native Of Glas-
cow, born in 1890, and became a mer-
chant of prominence, particularly In the
foreign trade. He received his education
as a clerk in the custom house at Kings
ton, Jamaica. where he discovered and ex-
posed gross frauds of his superior officer
and won the confidence and patronage of
men of high position and wide influence.
who afterward sent him 10 the colony
Of Virginia and obtained for him enor-
nous grants of land there. He organized
the BraddOck campaign and. made Wash
ington a colonel of militia. giving him
his first chance at military career, for
which we ought to be duly grateful.
While Dinwiddie was governor and con-
trelled the commerce of Virginia he let
in several of his Glasgow neighbors and
friends for a good thing in the tobacco
way. They obtained large plantations at
nominal cost, made immense crops OF
tobacco and established large manufac-
tories at Glasgow, where they worked up
the weed into cigars and other forms of
smoking mat erial Dinwiddie is supposed
to have had an interest in all this and
was charged with embezzlement. extor-
ton and all kinds Of corrupt practices by
those who were not admitted to his
schemes. At any rate. when he returned to
Glasgow from America he was very
rich man. The house in which he lived
in splendor in the most fashionable part
of the city is still standing and is occu-
pied by the families of half dozen coal
miners.
With this start and the invention of the
steam engine by James Watt. Glasgow
was ready for industrial revolution. She
had the men and the money and the
material resources behind them.
Richest Coal Fields on Earth.
The coal fields of Lanarkshire, immedi-
ately south of Glasgow, are the richest
in the world. The annual output from
them is about eighteen million tons. About
the beginning of the nineteenth century
the manufacturers came to this rich field
of fuel and built blast furnaces. forges
and machine shops until Glasgow has dis
tanced all competition in the old world
and the output of the iron industry
amounts TO nearly double that of the
Pittsburg district in the United States.
Bleaching and calico printing became
another important and prosperous Occu-
patton. 1t Is said that this was largely
due to the Introduction of chloride of
lime for bleaching. through the informa-
ton and advice of James Watt, the in
ventor of the steam engine. This natural
~ created a boom in the chemical
Wsa o, and
Cartwright. the pioneers in the invention
of labor saving machinery for the manu-
facture OF textiles. lived and did their
work here and built the great factories
that took over the hand loom weaving
from the cottages of Scotland.
The city owes its commercial position
to the energy and courage which created
an artificial harbor and waterway in the
Clyde. which in 1850 was lazy, shallow
muddy stream, choked by sand banks and
shoals and. except in the rainy season,
too shallow for anything but a rowboat.
The Clyde and the Mississippi.
A Glasgow bailie (alderman once heard
boastful American contemptuously COM
pairing the Clyde with the Mississippi
river.
"Hoot, mon.' exclaimed the bailie.
God mighty no doot made the Mis-
sissippi. but We made the Clyde oorsels,"
and that is actually true, although the as
sertion may seem a little irreverent.
In 1853 an act of parliament for deepen
ing the channel was obtained and since
that time fifteen miles of mud thirty feet
deep and more than 500 feet wide have
been dredged out at an expense of some
ago the water did not average three feet
deep, but today the Clyde floats not only
the heaviest tonnage that is found upon
the ocean. but some of the greatest ships
of European nations, passenger vessels
and men-Of-war have been built upon the
banks of the river. The greatest triumphs
of the shipyards of the Clyde are the In
domitable, the Britishr cruiser which
smashed all records when it brought home
the Prince of Wales at the rate of 264
knots an hour from Canada and the
Lustania, which has made p knots
A voyage doom the Waiter" as the
Clyde is usually called by the natives,
will furnish the passenger an opportunity
to see dozen different shipyards which
produce more tonnage than any others
In the world and an assemblage of craft
of all nations. sizes and designs from the
old-fashioned wind jammer'' to the mod
ern turbine racer. Such a fleet of ships
cannot be seen anywhere else
Many of them are in active use many
have been brought here for repairs and
many obsolete ones have been abandoned
and are moored along the shore because
there is no other place to take them 1t
Is as difficult to get rid of useless
ship as 1t used to be of a wornout hoop
skirt 1t costs more to break I'D an
iron hull than 1t is worth, and you can
not throw or give one away. The larger
number Of the vessels now moored along
the Clyde, however, are temporarily laid
up because business is dull and there are
no cargoes for them. This is the quietest
time the shipping world has known for
twelve years.
"Doon the Waiter"
doom the waiter" makes an interesting
excursion. Passenger steamers are going
back and forth every hour. touching at
various points on both banks to receive
and discharge freight and passengers for
the shipyards, the furnaces, the coal
mines and the towns along the route
After they are passed the steamer runs
swiftly along the winding stream between
green and hil1y shores dotted by villas
and stately mansions, embosomed in
dense groves where the rich men of
Glasgow have their homes. The end of
the voyage is the Island of Butte, where
the marquis of that name. one Of the
richest men In the kingdom, has a mag
niflcent modern castle among the ruins of
ancient fortresses and keeps which were
built by his ancestors. The Island Of Ar
ran Is great attraction for tourists and
antiQuarians. 1t Is associated with the
careers of Fingle, Bruce and. later. of
Queen Of Scots There are many inter-
Including