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LEFT TONNAGE 431 TOOKE In connection with yachts tonnage is measured by special rules for the purpose of regulating time allowances in racing. These rules are numerous and varied almost as the yacht clubs and associa- tions employing them, but the rule which has hitherto been most generally adopted in Great Britain is known as the "Thames Rule," and is simply a slight modification from the B. 0. M. tonnage. TONNAGE, AND POUNDAGE, cer- tain duties on wine and other mercftan- dise, which began to be levied in England in the reign of Edward II. They were at first granted to the crown by the vote of Parliament for a limited number of years, and renewed on their expiry. The object of these imposts was said to be that the king might have ready money in case of a sudden emergency demanding it for the defense of the realm and the guarding of the sea. Charles II. and James II. obtained grants of tonnage and poundage for life, but William III. only for limited periods ; and by three statutes of Anne and George I. these imposts were made perpetual, and mortgaged for the public debt. The Customs Consolidation Act of 1787 swept away tonnage and poundage and similar charges, and sub- stituted a new and single duty on each article. TONSILITIS, inflammation or one or both of the tonsils, generally extending also to the palate and uvula. It brings with it dryness, pain, and heat of the throat, with difficulty of swallowing, and often ends in abscesses, one at least of which suppurates. It is a common dis- ease in moist variable weather. TONSILS, in anatomy, two glands, one on each side of the palate between its pillars. They consist of a number of deep mucous follicles or cryptae, sur- rounded by and deposited in cellular tissue arranged in a somewhat circular form. They are sometimes called amygdalae. See Tonsilitis. TONSON, JACOB, an English publish- er; born in London, England, in 1656. He commenced business in Chancery Lane in 1677, removed to Gray's Inn in 1697, and thence in 1712 to the Shake- speare's Head, opposite Catherine Street in the Strand. He retired from business in 1720, and died April 21, 1736. He is worthy of remembrance as Dryden's regular publisher, as the originator of the miscellanies which bear his name, as having brought out the first good editions of Milton and the first complete octavo edition of Shakespeare, and as the secre- tary of the Kit Cat Club, which used to meet in his villa at Barn Elms, on the Thames. TONSURE, in ecclesiology and Church history, the shaving of the crown in a circle, which is a distinguishing mark of clerks in the Roman Church. Most of the mendicant and cloistered orders allow only a narrow strip of hair to grow round the head, all above and below being shaved; the tonsure of secular clerics ia small. The tonsure is a necessary pre- liminary to entering the clerical state, whether secular or religious; in the former case it is conferred by the bishop of the diocese, in the latter by the head of the religious house, if a mitered abbot. It invests the receiver with all the privi- leges of a cleric, and furnishes a means to distinguish the higher from the lower clergy, as the extent of the tonsure in- creases with the rank till the priesthood is reached. Also, the act of admission to the clerical state. At first it was never given without some minor order being conferred at the same time, but this practice ceased in the 7th century. TONTINE, a term derived from the name of Lorenzo Tonti, a Neapolitan, who settled in Paris in Cardinal Maza- rin's time, and proposed in 1653 to raise a fund of $125,000,000 for the relief of the national exchequer by means of a financial association, of which the great prize should ultimately accrue to the longest liver. There were to be shares of $1,500. The subscribers were to be di- vided into 10 classes according to age; and for each class a fixed sum was annually to be divided equally among the members of the class. In this way, while each member should get fair interest from the first on his capital, the profit falling to survivors would increase as years went on, and the last survivor would receive the whole of the interest due to the class he belonged to. The tontine is a lottery of annuities — or coni- pounded of lottery and annuity — and was frequently had recourse to in France in the 18th century, with government sanc- tion. TOOKE, JOHN HORNE, an English political writer; born in Westminster, England, June 25, 1736; was educated at Westminster and Eton; afterward going to St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1760 he entered the Church, and obtained the living of New Brentford. The year 1771 witnessed his contest with Junius, in which, in the general opinion, he came off victor. In 1773 he resigned his bene* fice to study for the bar (to which from being in orders he was not admitted) ; and by his legal advice to Mr. Tooke of Purley he became that gentleman's heir and assumed his name. In 1777 he was prosecuted for a seditious libel condemn-