The first Assembly Rooms were at the West Bow, opened in 1760. The Assemblies were removed to new rooms in the High Street (Assembly Close) some ten years later. They were weekly meetings for dancing and card-playing, kept up by a charge of five shillings for admission. At first the Assemblies were managed entirely by private individuals, but a change was made in 1746, when they were transferred to the charge of seven persons connected with the Royal Infirmary and the Charity Workhouse. A lady of fashion was always associated with this committee, to look after points of etiquette and decorum. The surplus funds were always given to the two institutions named. The George Street Rooms were erected to supply defects of accommodation and to shift the centre of fashion into the New Town. Sir Walter pictures the veterans of his generation as recollecting with a sigh the Old Assembly Rooms, or Dun's Rooms, or the George Street Rooms, when first opened, as a place of public amusement, where all persons, of rank and fashion entitling them to frequent such places, met upon easy and upon equal terms, and without any attempt at intrusion on the part of others; where the pretensions of every one were known and judged of by their birth and manners, and not by assumed airs of extravagance, or a lavish display of wealth. His conclusion was that, upon the whole, the society of the higher classes in Edinburgh was formerly select, the members better known to each other, and therefore more easy in intercourse than at a later day (say after the beginning of the nineteenth century). Evidently what charmed Scott was the family charm of the old system, and the mild assertion of the aristocratic caste which was doomed to give way before the claims of mere wealth. The Scottish aristocracy were not rich. The old Edinburgh therefore suited at once their purses and their prejudices. The ladies were content to entertain their friends at tea. Then after some wine-drinking by the gentlemen, the carpets would be lifted, and a homely and happy evening spent in dancing. Thus there was abundance of sociability at little expense; and friendships were warmer because of this admission to the intimacies of the ordinary daily life. Families met more frequently, when the only preparation necessary was 'a social and domestic meal of plain cookery, with a glass of good port-wine or claret.' Scott is never severe on the drinking customs, of which the purely social aspect appealed so strongly to his warm heart and kindly nature. He admits that the claret was sometimes allowed to circulate too often and too long, but the tea-table and the card-party claimed their rights sooner or later, and perhaps the young ladies might thank the claret for the frequent proposal of rolling aside the carpet and dancing to the music of the pianoforte.