There
are coffee-houses already, but I don't think there are any
where they can laugh and talk and read papers just as they
please. The sort I contemplate would suit poor young fellows
who cannot have a comfortable fire at home. I have seen men
dragged into drinking ways from having no comfort at home,
and women also drawn to the dram-shop from the same cause.
Don't you think something could be done by setting the
persons I mention to do something for themselves?"
Edinburgh conferred on Livingstone the freedom of the city, besides
entertaining him at a public breakfast and hearing him at another
meeting. We are not surprised to find him writing to Sir Roderick
Murchison from Rossie Priory, on the 27th September, that he was about
to proceed to Leeds, Liverpool, and Birmingham, "and then farewell to
public spouting for ever. I am dead tired of it. The third meeting at
Edinburgh quite knocked me up." It was generally believed that his
appearances at Edinburgh were not equal to some others; and probably
there was truth in the impression, for he must have come to it
exhausted; and besides, at a public breakfast, he was put out by a
proposal of the chairman, that they should try to get him a pension.
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