Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/135

 9" s. vn. FEE. 16,1901.) NOTES AND QUERIES.

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on the ground that the Queen needs the whale's tail to furnish her wardrobe with whalebone ! "

The old writers should have known that baleen (to adopt the spelling of Ogilvie's 'Comprehensive English Dictionary') comes from the head and not from the tail of the whale, which, pace the legal correspondent, is not a fish at all. ST. SWITHIN.

SIR T. LODGE AND SIR J. WHITE, LORD MAYORS OF LONDON. It appears from a curious and interesting contemporary entry, doubtless in the autograph of John Stow, the antiquary, which I recently chanced to meet with at fol. 46 b of a MS. of a miscel- laneous character, chiefly by earlier hands, contained in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, and numbered 306, that the first Lord Mayor of London who wore a beard was Sir Thomas Lodge, and also that his immediate successor in the mayoralty, Sir John White, not only did the like, but was the first to discard the ancient four-cornered "bonnet," as worn by all his predecessors therein, in favour of a round cap, weighing less than four ounces. Thinking it will interest your readers, I give a transcript as follows :

"1563

" syr Thomas lodge beynge mayr of london ware a beard, & was y e fyrst that (beynge mayr of london) evar ware any y e whiche was thowght to mayny people very straynge to leve y e cumly aunsyent cus- tom of shavynge theyr beards, nevartheles he ware y* comly auncient bonet w* iiij cornars as all othar his predysesowrs had done before hym, this S T. lodge brakse [=bracks=brags] and professe to be banqwe rieoute [=bankrupt, Fr. banqueroute= bankruptcy] in his maioralitie to the grete slandar of y e citie but y e next yere afftar ser John whit beynge mayre ware bothe a longe beard & all so a rownd cape [sic = cap] y* wayea not iiij ounces whiche semyd to all men (in consyderacion of y e auncient bonyt) to be very vncomly/ "

^ The words from " this S T. lodge " to " y e citie" (inclusive) appear to have been sub- sequently added by Stow, and probably taken from another entry by him at fpl. 70 a of the same MS., under the like date, in which it is stated (inter alia) that " ser Thomas lodge (to y great slaunda' of y c wholl city) in y e ende of his maioralitie proffessyd to be banqe- rowpte."

This Sir Thomas Lodge, it may be added, had during his mayoralty a somewhat serious quarrel with Queen Elizabeth respecting the conduct towards him of a citizen, one Edward Skeggs, in his (the latter's) office of her Majesty's purveyor, and was in consequence ultimately fined and compelled to resign his gown. The above statement as to Lodge professing to be bankrupt no doubt bears

reference to this matter. According to Heath, he was father of the dramatic writer contem- porary with Shakespeare. His will was proved in 1585 (P.C.C. Brudenell, 29), the sentence as to same being entered at fol. 26 of same register. W. I. K. V.

THE MINT PRICE OF GOLD. The present Mint price of gold, as we all know, is 31. 17s. lO^d per ounce. It has stood at that figure since the last reduction of the guinea, that to 21s. in 1717. By a table published in Harris's ' Essay on Coins ' (part ii. p. 2), it appears that the weight of 20s. in tale that is to say, of the pound sterling in silver, as fixed by 43 Elizabeth was 3 pz. 17 dwt. 10 gr. As the provisions of 43 Elizabeth were in force in 1717, when the transition to the gold standard in England may be said to have been definitely effected, one's first im- pression, on glancing at these figures, would naturally be that there is an organic con- nexion between them, or perhaps that they are different expressions of the same fact. Their similarity, however, appears to be due to the purest coincidence. The pound sterling in tale, which was at the Conquest 11 oz. 5 dwt. troy it was the Tower pound- was brought down, by successive reductions, by the end of Elizabeth's reign, to the above- named figure, 3 oz. 17 dwt. 10 gr., and remained at that figure till the date of the adoption of the present monetary ratio between gold and silver, which fixed the silver price of the ounce of gold at 3l. 17s. lOjd

WILLIAM WARRAND CARLILE. Haillie, Largs, Ayrshire.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

"LE TRECENTE CARiCHE." In a letter of 1651, from a schoolboy to his brother at Oxford, I find

" they have bin more fruitfull unto me, then that field in Sicily, called le trecente cariche, the field of three hundred Loads, so called because it returns the Sower, three hundred for one year."

I presume this field is a commonplace de- rived from some book of extracts or reading- book of the time. Can any of your readers guide me to the source of it ?

J. R. MAGRATH.

Queen s College, Oxford.

SERJEANT BETTESWORTH. May I ask if some one of your many readers can give the