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,
West Port, Edinburgh the main street through the western part of the burgh of Portsburgh - a burgh of barony from 1649 to 1856. The name "West Port" originally referred only to the gate itself, but was used for the entire length of the street leading away from the gate in maps from around 1837 onwards. "Wester Portsburgh" still appeared as the name of the street on maps as late as 1831. "Portsburgh" can also be seen as the name for the same street in a map from 1836. However, this does not serve to distinguish it from the eastern part of Portsburgh