History of Edinburgh the meantime the Old Town continued to decay into an increasingly dilapidated, overcrowded slum with high mortality rates, and was practically segregated socially from the rest of the city. This was especially true where the sub-division of tenements offered the cheapest lodgings in narrow alleyways that formed the backdrop to the infamous 'West Port Murders' of Burke and Hare. In 1865 Alexander Smith wrote of one of the poorest districts, The Cowgate is the Irish portion of the city. Edinburgh leaps over it with bridges: the inhabitants are morally and geographically the lower orders. They keep to their own quarters,
USS Fairfield (1828) USS Fairfield (1828) USS "Fairfield" was a sloop-of-war in the United States Navy. "Fairfield" was launched 28 June 1828 by New York Navy Yard; and first put to sea 20 August 1828, Commander Foxhall A. Parker, Sr., in command. Reaching Port Mahon in the Balearic Islands 25 September 1828, "Fairfield" cruised the Mediterranean Sea until returning to Hampton Roads 5 May 1831. Among her crewmembers was midshipman George W. Taylor, later an infantry general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Her second cruise, from 15 November 1831 to 23 July 1832, was in the West Indies as