Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/87

 1-2 S. IV. MARCH, 1918.J NOTES AND QUERIES.

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"It is possible that no exception could be taken to the occasional use by the son of hi: father's signet ring, or of his crested silver spoon and forks at mealtimes. And I believe that i has been held that a member of a college at a university, for instance, or of a club, can freel\ use the armorially stamped notepaper, the righi to the use of which is conferred by his member ship, without any risk of being prosecuted for so doing.

" Nor does the mere possession of armoria bearings attach any liability, otherwise on everj occasion of the purchase of any old plate the armorial evidence (if any) of prior ownership must be removed.

' Further, I take it that the wearer of an armorial signet ring, disgusted at such socialistic and anti-heraldic legislation, is equally at liberty to put it in his pocket and decline any longer to wear it on his finger. He would no longer wear or use it."

And to these instances I would now add the case of a heraldic book-plate, the use of which might be discontinued by its owner through the necessity to restrict one' personal expenses, as at the present time. Surely the legislature did not intend that h e should, in such a case, be obliged to destroy all those book-plates which he had a Iready inserted in his volumes in the days when he did take out a licence for armorial bearings.

Of course, what I wrote in 1905 was merely my own opinion, given when I had not the two encyclopaedias above mentioned to fall back upon ; but I think I may reasonably claim that what I then wrote fairly expresses the deductions to be drawn from the authorities I have now cited. It seems to me that what I then said will cover also the wider issues now raised by G. J., namely, as to how far objects of antiquarian value and interest are affected by the Act, the same principle applicable to the concrete cases already touched upon applying equally to them.

I can scarcely imagine any person being so ill-advised as, from fear of a prosecution, to erase and so irremediably ruin from an artistic or antiquarian point of view any armorial bearing on an old oak court cupboard or some ancient piece of plate which he had had the good fortune to inherit or purchase. Just fancy, for instance, this being done to that most interesting and valuable Elizabethan silver (parcel gilt) tankard that was sold at Christie's recently for 1.650Z. a process that would result in its being no longer a " collector's piece," and so entail a large diminution in value.

G. J. records Lord Beaconsfield's sarcastic objection to " support the British constitu- tion on footmen's hair-powder"; and it

may be interesting to hear what that great opponent of Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Gladstone (himself a Chancellor of the Exchequer), had to say about the tax on armorial bearings in one of his speeches on finance, as we* learn from another correspondent of ' N. & Q.' (10 S. vi. 375). He characterized it as unjust, and said that, though it could not be abolished at once, he trusted that it might be swept away in a short time.* That "short time" has, apparently, not yet arrived : nor, I am afraid, under present conditions, is it likely to do so.

In conclusion, let me advise any fortunate possess ors of such armorial objects as are referred to by G. J. to " wait and see " if they are prosecuted before they proceed to deface or mutilate their treasures, whether of old furniture, plate, or books.

J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

The Derby-Disraeli Reform Bill of 1867, as originally drafted, contained several " fancy franchises." Among these, it gave a vote to every one who paid the " assessed taxes." Disraeli, talking it over with the Parliamentary draftsman, asked what the " assessed taxes " were. The draftsman explained that one of them was the tax on hair -powder. Disraeli exclaimed: " That will never do ! If it is discovered that we base our new franchise on hair-powder, we shall be the laughing-stock of Europe " ; and this particular franchise was removed. The tax on powder was abolished two years later. G. W. E. *R.

This duty must be nearly a hundred years old at least, if the statement is

orrect that John Lane of King's Bromley, Esq.. who was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1807, and died in 1824, established his right to exemption from the tax on the ground that he bore the royal arms, i.e., a

anton of England, being the augmentation granted temp. Charles II. for services rendered in the preservation of the monarch after his escape from Boscobel.

S. A. GRXTKDY-NEWMAK, F.S.A Scot.

Walsall.

' Haydn's Dictionary of Dates ' says that ' armorial bearings were taxed in 1798, and again in 1808."

They were also taxed under the Revenue Act, 1869. See Lord Halsbury's ' Laws of England,' s.v. ' Revenue.'

ANDREW OLIVER.

jf this speech is, I believe, still unanswered.
 * Your correspondent's inquiry as to a- report