Substance of the Trials of John Skelton, Neil Sutherland..

1812. The Aftermath of an Edinburgh Riot [Trials]. Skelton, John, Primary Defendant. Substance of the Trials of John Skelton, Neil Sutherland, Hugh MacDonald, Hugh MacIntosh, George Napier, John Grotto, Robert Gunn, And Alex. MacDonald, Alias White, Before the High Court of Justiciary, For Committing Murder and Robbery, On the Streets of Edinburgh, On the 31st December, 1811, And 1st January, 1812. To Which are Added, An Account of the Execution of N. Sutherland, H. M'Intosh, and H. M'Donald; And a Letter from M'Intosh to His Father. Leith: Printed at the Telegraph Office, for William Reid, 1812. 72 pp. 12mo. (7" x 3-3/4"). Stab-stitched pamphlet in later buckram, gilt fillets and title to spine, later bookplate of Sir Geoffrey Gould Briggs to front pastedown. Moderate toning to interior, second and third leaves detached. $250. * Only edition. Skelton and his co-defendants were participants in the Tron Riot, a disturbance in Edinburgh's Old Town on Hogmanay. Most of the rioters were boys or young men. Skelton, McIntosh, Macdonald and Sutherland were sentenced to death; Skelton's sentence was commuted to transportation for life and the others hanged. Though the riot did not have a specific inciting event, the participants were dissatisfied with the economic inequality and increased police presence in Edinburgh. Official narratives sought to downplay this aspect of the riot and focused on constructing the rioters as idle delinquents. Our pamphlet concurs, characterizing the defendants as "dissolute and licentious" and urging parents to "bring [their children] up in paths of religion and morality." Briggs [1914-1993] was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong in the 1970s and of Brunei in the 1980s. OCLC locates 4 copies in North American law libraries (Social Law, Library of Congress, Harvard, University of Minnesota).