NOTES AND QUERIES.

Evening Star, Issue 7431, 28 January 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Baldric is a band or sash worn partly as a military and partly as a heraldic symbol. It passes round the waist as a girdle, or passes over the left shoulder, and is brought clown obliquely under the right arm, or is suspended from the right shoulder in such a way as to sustain a sword. Many of the effigies of knights represent the baldric. Queen Victoria frequently wears a blue silken baldric on State occasions. The name is derived from the baltcus of the Roman soldier. Baron.—'This term, as to the origin of which much difference of opinion exists, is probably derived from the Latin word baro —a man, a hero. It originally signified a stupid, brutal man ; afterwards came to signify a man simply; and latterly by one of those strange transmutations which are not uncommon in language, a man preeminently, or a person of distinction. The fact of the appellation having been introduced into England by the Normans seems to favor a Romanic origin for the word. It is now the title which we apply to the lowest degree of hereditary nobility. In former times the word was used to include the whole nobility of England, because all noblemen were barons, whatever might be the higher ranks in the peerage which they occupied. The general theory of the constitution, however, is that it is as barons that all the peers sit in the Upper House; and it is on this ground that the archbishops and bishops arc said to sit in virtue of their baronies. When a baron is summoned to the House of Lords by writ, a letter in the Sovereign’s name directs him to repair to the Parliament, to be holden at a specified time and place, to advise with his Sovereign, the prelates, and nobles, about the weighty affairs of the nation. On the arrival of the new peer he is presented by two barons to the Lord Chancellor, his patent or writ being carried by a king-at-arms. This having been read by the Chancellor, he congratulates him on becoming a member of the House of Peers, and invests him with his robe. The oaths are then administered by the Clerk of Parliament, and tUe new baron is conducted to a seat on the barons’ bench. Derelict, in English law, is a term used signifying anything forsaken or left, or wilfully cast away. Derelict lands, if suddenly left by the sea, belong to the Crown ; but if the sea has receded gradually and imperceptibly the gain will go to the owner of the adjacent land, English Sumptuary Laws. —A statute cf Edward the Third narrates that, “ through the excessive and over-many costly meats which the people of this realm have used more than elsewhere, many mischiefs have happened ; for the great men, by these excesses, have been sore grieved, and the lesser people, who only endeavor to imitate the great ones in such sorts of meat, are much impoverished, whereby they are not able to aid themselves nor their liege lord in lime of need as they ought, and many other evils have happened as well to their souls as their bodies” ; and enacts that no man, of whatever conditioner estate, shall be allowed more than two courses at dinner or supper, or more than two kinds of food in each course, except on the principal festivals of the year, when three courses at the utmost are to be allowed. All who did not enjoy a free estate of LIOO per annum were prohibited from wearing furs, skins, or silk, and the use of foreign cloth was allowed to the royal family alone. Another Act in the same reign declares “that the outrageous and excessive apparel of divers persons against their state and degree is the destruction and impoverishment of the land; and it describes the apparel of the various classes into which it distributes the people. Scotland had also a similar class of statutes. The Scottish Parliament attempted to regulate the dress of the ladies, to save the purses of the “ puir gentlemen, their husbands and fathers.” There was the prohibition against their coming to kjrk or market with the face muffled in a veil; and statutes were passed against superfluous banqueting, and the inordinate use of foreign spices “brocht from the pairts beyond the sea, and sauld to monic folk that are very unable to sustaine thatcoaste.” Neither in England, Scotland, nor France do these laws appear to have been practically observed to any great extent; in fact, the kings of France and England contributed far more, by their love of pageantry, to excite a taste for luxury among their subjects, than by their ordinances to repress it. Mr Froude suggests that such statutes may have been regarded, at the time when they were issued, rather as authoritative declarations of what wise and good men considered right, than as laws to which obedience could be enforced. Enactments of this kind have long been considered to be an unwarrantable meddling with the liberty of the subject Martinet. A severe disciplinarian. From Colonel Martinet, a French military officer in the time of Louis XlV.—Voltaire. Standing Orders is the name given to those permanent regulations which may be made by either House of Parliament for the conduct of its proceedings, and are binding on the House by which they are made as continual by-laws, enduring from Parliament to Parliament unless rescinded. A Standing Order of the House of Lords when rescinded is said to be vacated; in the Commons the corresponding term is repealed, In the Lords, a motion for making or dispensing with a Standing Order cannot be granted on the same day that the motion is made, or till the House has been summoned to consider it; and every Standing Order, as soon as agreed to, is added to the Roll of Standing Orders, which is carefully preserved and published from time to time. In the House of Commons there was, until 1854, no authorised collection of Standing Orders, except such as related to private Bills. Standing Orders are occasionally suspended when it is desirable that a Bill should be passed with unusual expedition. Tontine.—A Neapolitan of the name of Tonti seems to be the author of this term. He was the first propounder of a scheme for a financial association of which the prize or prizes were to accrue to the longest liver. There are, however, various kinds of tontines ; and the designation of tontine may, with propriety, be applied to any financial scheme by which it is proposed that gain shall accrue to survivorship. Schemes on the tontine principle seem generally to be acceptable to the public, owing probably to the sentimental faith which most persons have in their own prospects of longevity. Generally, in an association on what is called the tontine principle, a payment is made by each member of the association, and with the capital so formed an annuity, payable at the same rate until all the lives forming the association are extinct, is bought from some company or individual. This annuity is divided among the members according to age and premium paid by each, and on the decease of any member the surplus thence arising is divided among the survivors ; and on the death of the last member of the association, the total annuity reverts to the source from which it has hitherto emanated.