MISCREANT GROCERS

Combing through online files, Alice # found the following account in the Dundee Advertiser of

28th May 1862. Most if not all the grocers of Kirrie [the Co-op was not caught?] had their sharp practices caught by the 1862 equivalent of Trading Standards - short measure weights or deficient beams and scales off the balance.

At the JP court the other morn, ye should have heard the wails

Grocers fearin their profit was gone, coalmen hopin for bail

Stonewear merchants, bakers too, whitna sorrowful worthy crew

Aa haled up tae face their fate, fur cheatin their measures and fixin their weights

Crookit beams an chancy scales, man, how they dragged their tails

When they paid their fines

Ewan McVicar