Excerpt from Trial of Deacon BrodieFew cities have preserved more faithfully than Edinburgh the traditions of former days, and none is richer in the material of romance. Throughout the length of the Royal mile extending from Holyrood to the Castle Hill, each tortuous wynd and narrow close owns its peculiar association, each obscure court and towering land has contributed, if but by a footnote, to the volume of the city's history. And where these visible memorials have perished beneath the slow assault of time, or succumbed to the more lethal methods of modern improvement, the legends which they embodied survive their dissolution and serve in turn to perpetuate their fame.Of the many memories that haunt the lover of old Edinburgh, wandering today among the vestiges of her romantic and insanitary past, perhaps the most curious is that of William Brodie, Deacon of the Wrights and doyen of the double life, by day a considerable house carpenter and member of the Town Council, by night a housebreaker and the companion of thieves.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.