Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/598

 492 NOTES AND QUERIES. ri2s.vm.juxE is, 1021. Por my dear only think court mourning I've none Not a gown so what in the world's to be done You know that when last I went shopping with you I bought nothing but green pink orange and blue Blue suits my complexion I like to be gay I wear pink in July and green does for May Bye the Bye that last shawl made such an effect First awestruck Miss L * asked how to direct To the shop whence it came, with an envying glance And W-gn-r t was sure that I'd got it from France But now for the mourning for without it to go I would not for millions it never would do How Miss B-rbl-ck would wink Mrs. R-g-n-J fret Mrs. G-d-ll herself would fly off in a pet Why e'en the Miss T-ck-rs|| have both got their j 'black And shall I be first in my duty to lack Who keep the best house, and have the best knowledge Of Parties and dress throughout the whole college Whom the Regent admires that I should be seen Out of mourning when all else are in't for the Queen So hunt all the shops, run all over the Town For the smartest and costliest ready made gown But mind above all its short waisted and full With a fringe of Black Roses and border of Tulle And send me a corset my shoulders to brace Of sarsnet or silk trimmed with Brussels point lace A crape Bonnet and Feathers black gloves and a i fan French ebony or if you like it Japan I'm writing my love in a terrible hurry For I've been since we met in such a sad flurry So bilious, so nervous, so restless at night So full of the vapours the headache and fright Ever since we have had that late terrible riot I wish that the Boys would but remain quiet Then eight were expelled think how shocking my j dear I declare that it cost me full many a tear Then poor dear Dr. K-t- I was so alarmed His nice little figure they might have so harmed What with their hooting and pelting and thrusting i Then they threw about eggs how very disgusting ! ! "But not here end my griefs I'm left quite alone For Coleridge and Evars my fav'rites are gone Such elegant figures, such charming young men I never shall look on their equals again, However of late my examining eye Has fixed upon one their loss to supply And that one is Townshend such douceur such grace So slender a waist and so smiling a face His figure delights me, he must be my beau In short I will have him to breakfast just so My niece is now with me, a nice little thing I think I must take her to Town in the spring The men are all dying, but nothing done yet I fear too she's grown a little coquette t Wagner. J Regenceau. Goodall. Tuckers. Her contour is perfect, she's just seventeen With the prettiest ancle you ever have seen She'll be vastly admired I clearly foresee Besides too they say she's very like me Adieu mon amie, love to all friends in town As you value iny life, remember the gown As well as the gloves, fan, feathers and bonnet And try for my Album, to pick up a sonnet But hark ! there is company waiting below I can't wait a moment Yours M. ANGELO. If the initial " M " is not a mistake of the copyist, it may stand for Malevolti, a family name much affected by the Angelos. CHARLES SWYNNERTON. WINDOW TAX AND DAIRIES (12 S. viii. 449). I well remember seeing windows with wooden labels marked " Cheese Room " or " Dairy," say about 1843. The windows were not glazed but closed by small bars of wood fixed diagonally and about their own width apart, so as to admit both light and air. I know one house in which all the windows over a certain width are bricked up on one side to bring them to the width at which they would be untaxed or less heavily taxed, and I remember at least one other house that was, and perhaps is, treated in the same way. J. T. F. Winterton', Lines. The duties of 1695 (6 Geo. III. c. 38) were increased on many dates up to 1808, re- duced in 1823 and repealed in 1851, when the inhabited house duty was substituted. Long detailed rules are to be found, e.g., in the Act of 1808 (48 Geo. III. c. 55), for charging and measuring the windows or lights. Those in dairies or cheese rooms were exempt if made in a particular way, without glass, and if the word " Dairy " or " Cheese Room " was painted in large roman letters on the outer door or on the outside of the window. The Act of 1851, though repealing the tax, continued certain powers and provisions of the earlier Acts for the purposes of the new duties, and certain of these provisions were repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1872. Macaulay, in his ' History of England,' chap, xxi., gives an account of the genesis of the window tax and refers to the Commons Journals of Dec. 13, 1695. He terms the tax a great evil, but a. blessing when compared with the curse of a mutilated currency from which it was the indirect means of saving the nation. Every house was visited yearly by unpaid inspectors, who had to be householders. An account of his experiences is given by
 * Longford.