Rev. John Aitken, Green Preacher of former days

Mr. AITKEN selected as his favourite stations for holding forth on the week-days, Stockwell Bridge, or the old timber one at the foot of the Saltmarket, the Barrowfield Toll, or the head of Burnt-barns, opposite the eastern mouth of Balaam’s passage. On Sundays, he never failed to be in the Green, sometimes creeping up as far as Nelson’s Monument, to catch, as he said, "stravaigers in those parts."

His preaching apparatus was extremely simple. It consisted of a three-legged stool with a pewter plate temptingly placed thereon, and an old fir chair, somewhat frail, but bound up with old garters to hold it together. The Rev. John’s sole official factotum was a tall, handsome, goodlooking woman, considerably under his own age, who ever and anon cast a bewitching eye at him as he was groping for his collections in the pewter plate. She dutifully read out the line when John commanded her so to do, and she faithfully attended him in all his discourses down to the day of his death.