two epitaphs, one on a gentleman, and the | style have greatly varied and at times VIRGINITY was had in estimation, And wont to be observed with veneration: But live angelic lives: and VIRGINS crowned And now the inheritance undefiled has gained. Mark here how the old maid's pride wished it to be distinctly understood that the reason of her having lived and died in single blessedness was certainly not from want of offers! We have already referred to the large families of many of the departed, but one other noticeable feature is the extreme longevity of many, as recorded in their epitaphs. Thus, Thomas Parr, who was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1635, is thus described: "The Old, Old, very Old Man, Thomas Parr, was born at the Glyn, within This Chapelry of Great Willaston, and Parish of Alberbury, in the County of Salop, In the year of our Lord 1483. He lived in the Reigns of Ten Kings and Queens of England (viz.) K. Edw. 4, K. Edwd. 5, K. Rich. 3, K. Hen. 7th, K. Hen. 8th, K. Edw. 6, Q. Mary, Q. Eliz., K. James 1st, and K. Charles 1st; died the 13 and was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 15th of November, 1635, aged 152 years and 9 months." Or, again, Stephen Rumbold, who Lived to the age of an hundred and one, sanguine and strong, An hundred to one you don't live so long. Several others are recorded as having lived over the century, but whether it is that the race is degenerating, or that this sceptical age insists on facts and statistics from the register of births, and so minimizes the chance of any exaggeration - however it is a modern centenarian is a most unusual if not almost an unknown phenomenon. As may be supposed from the variety of minds, and the composite character of the population of these islands of ours, the form of epitaphs and their literary have assumed peculiar and fantastic forms. The earliest of these peculiarities, viz.: contraction, shows itself when the English language first comes into use for such inscriptions, and of which one example will suffice: Lo al yt eu' I spēt yt sū tme had I The next period when strange forms occur is the Elizabethan, when the old paths in religion and commerce were being left behind, and the strong spirit of the English people was forcing its way into new lands, and into fresh realms of thought. Of these fresh departures in the literature of the churchyard, we shall just glance at a few. 1. The Paradox. This form, which had its origin at the time just mentioned, has continued in use down even to the present day. The strange contrasts which it presents attract the attention, and cause the thoughts to pass suddenly from one asbe contemplated to another exactly the pect in which the death under notice may this is but a natural transition, arising opposite. And it may be truly said that from the surroundings, when we contrast man's bodily frame in the full flush of health and vigor, with the same frame cold in death, and given over to corrup tion, or the soul of man cribbed, cabined, and confined in its fleshly investiture, and subject to griefs and trials, with the same Spirit abiding in a glorious immortality with Him in whose presence there is fulness of joy. Here is one dated 1611, in memory of Mrs. Ann Gibson, erected by her sorrowing husband: : What is she dead? doth he survive? In him, for her, yet dead, yet living. 2. The Dialogue. On some of the tombstones of this period the inscriptions take the form of a dialogue, setting forth reasons and answers why the departed one ought to have lived, or if he must needs Lo, all that ever I spent, that sometimes had I; And so they ceased. Death triumphs o'er his grave, Virtue o'er that which Death can never have. 3. The third noticeable peculiarity we may not inappropriately term fantastic conceits. The troublous times of the Civil War, the triumph of the Puritans, and the subsequent Restoration, are specially full of these strange and fantastic vagaries. Let two examples suffice. A disconsolate husband speaks thus to the reader: "Put off thy shoes, thou treadst on Holy earth, where lies the rarest Phoenix (ie., his wife); and then he addresses her dear departed shade as follows: Blest Saint once mine equal: O might I now adore thee, My Bliss, my Love, that thou art gone before Man a dry Laurell is. In like manner, Mistress Cicely Puckering has for an anagram :— I sleep secure: Christ's my King; with the lines beneath: Death's terrors nought affright me, nor his That "reverend, religious, and learned preacher (as his epitaph calls him), Daniel Evance, has for his anagram, “Ï can deal even;" and several, when they cannot get a suitable transposition into English, make up a Latin anagram from an English name. An acrostic is another fanciful form, whereby the initial letters of the de ceased's name are written downwards, and each one made to form the first letter of the lines of his epitaph. (Thy mournful husband) till I come by thee. Here is another, short and to the point, in the form of an acknowledgment from our Another variety is what is known as a mother earth:"Received of PHILIP HARD-rebus, being an emblematical representaING his borrowed earth July 4th, 1673." tion of words and syllables by means of 4. Anagrams, Acrostics, Rebuses, and pictures. Thus at the top of a tombstone Puzzles. We are accustomed to these in Norfolk there are represented, inclosed names at the end of some of our weekly in three sets of angels' wings, an hourpapers and periodicals, where the editor glass, a pearl, and an eye, with a rhyming tries to while away the tedium of an eveninscription beneath, commencing: ing round a cosy fire, by providing a Lo, Time-Pearl-Ey, a Rebus, which to means of pleasurable research to his readers, but we rarely associate them with Speaks what I whilom Was, a Timperley! the cold desolation and pensive melancholy of the churchyard. But so it is that in this strange, unsettled seventeenth century we find them in large numbers and in great and puzzling variety. An anagram, according to the dictionary definition, is a transposition of the letters of a word Here lies Dr. Ward, whom you knew well before; He was kind to his neighbours, good to the poor. thee Then we have puzzles without any key to decipher them. It is only by guesswork that we can hope to arrive at the true interpretation of such a one as the following, on a doctor, who died at the patriarchal age of one hundred and twentyfive: One grotesque variety is inscribed in the form of a parallelogram, with the inscription in Latin round the borders, and some of it so placed that the passer-by would require to stand on his head to read it. A very common form of monumental hilarity is produced by playing upon the name of the deceased when such lends itself to the occasion. Here is one on a Devonshire clergy man, of the name of William Mason, who died in 1639, at the early age of twentyeight: MASON, how is't that thou so soon art gone Home from thy work? What, was the fault i' th' stone, Or did thy hammer fail, or didst suspect Hammer the Word, GOOD LIFE thy line all blest. To the bright stones of NEW JERUSALEM. Thy work and labour men esteem a base one; God counts it blest. Here lies a blest FREE MASON. It will be observed that these, although they are made up by a play upon words, are not intentionally ludicrous as are so many, especially in the rural districts of England. The Scotch, being by nature a graver and more demure people, look upon 'death, as a rule, in its more awful aspect, and rarely indulge in those pleas antries, if they are really intended as such, of which a few examples will now be given : To the memory of Ric: Richards, who by Gangrene lost first a toe, afterwards a leg, and lastly his Life on the 7th day of April, 1656. Ah! cruell Death to make three meals of one, He'll find his feet, and stand when thou shalt fall. The Lord saw good, I was lopping off wood, I met with a check, and I broke my neck, but to what good end? as they only tend These may be multiplied indefinitely to show either that the survivors had little sense of the loss they had sustained, or did not realize the momentous issues ininto the regions of the unseen. But, while volved in the passing of an immortal soul levity is objectionable, there is also another form of epitaph which, although probably not intended to be facetious, is also objectionable from its strange medley, in recording too many characteristics of the deceased, the effect of which is to conto the mind of the reader a sense of vey the ludicrous, when these various qualities of excellence are placed on the one tombstone in close juxtaposition to one another. Thus a Mr. Philips is described as one "whose absolute contempt of riches, and inimitable performances on the violin, made him the admiration of all that knew him; he was born in Wales, made the Tour of Europe, and after the experience of both kinds of fortune died in the year 1732." From Chambers' Journal. UNCLAIMED STOCKS, DIVIDENDS, AND BANK DEPOSITS. BY S. H. PRESTON. JUST one hundred years ago, the then chancellor of the exchequer, Mr.__Pitt, being very anxious to replenish the Treasury, with the smallest possible friction to the happy idea of utilizing the accumuthe long-suffering taxpayers, conceived lated unclaimed dividends on government stocks, then in the coffers of the Bank of England. Accordingly, a return was prepared, from which it appeared that these unclaimed dividends had grown thus: In 1727 they amounted to only £43,000; in 1774, to £292,000; and in 1789, to £547, ooo. Mr. Pitt proposed that £500,000 of these accumulations should be paid into the national exchequer, and the consolidated fund made liable to recoup on claimants making good their title. The proposal was stoutly opposed by Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox, as well as by the directors of the Bank of England; but Mr. Pitt carried | each. The holding of one individual alone it by a large majority. in Consols and Reduced Threes amounts The result of the discussions in Parlia- to no less a sum than £187,598. The ment and in the press proved highly ben- unclaimed redemption money amounts to eficial to many persons who, up to that £7,849,775, 9s. 7d.; unclaimed stocks, etc., time, were ignorant of the fact that stock- in the hands of the national debt comholders or their representatives could missioners on October 1, 1889, £576,365, easily recover these long-forgotten funds. 18s. 6d.; total amount of redeemed stocks Innumerable claimants appeared, and in- compulsorily converted by Treasury warstead of the bank being able to advance to rants, £8,436,141, 8s. Id. the government £500,000, the actual sum handed over was only £376,739, os. 9d. In 1791, the first official list of unclaimed dividends on government stocks was published, containing "the names and descriptions of the proprietors of unclaimed dividends in the public funds, which became due before December 31, 1780, and remained unpaid on December 31, 1790, with the dates when the last dividends became payable, and the number of dividends due." The list filled two hundred pages, and the information given proved invaluable to the public. Supplements were published annually for many years afterwards, but some fifty years since they were discontinued. These unclaimed dividends may therefore now fairly be classed as "hidden moneys." Two hundred years ago, the national debt amounted to only £664,263, with an annual charge of £39,835. At the commencement of the American War it had risen to one hundred and thirty million, and at its conclusion to two hundred and fifty million. The great Revolutionary War cost the country the stupendous sum of six hundred million; and in 1817 the national debt reached its highest point namely, eight hundred and forty million. During her Majesty's reign it has been largely reduced, and now stands at about seven hundred million, with an annual charge of twenty-six million. Owing to the enormous increase in the national debt, the unclaimed dividends mounted up rapidly, and in 1808 stood at £1,047,891. In this year a further sum of half a million was advanced thereon to the government, without protest on the part of the Bank of England. In 1815 the unclaimed dividends had risen to £1,297,742. The number of stockholders is now nearly two hundred and fifty thousand, and, according to Mr. E. W. Hamil ton's highly interesting pamphlet on Mr. Goschen's wonderful Conversion and Redemption scheme, unclaimed funds are credited to no fewer than ten thousand nine hundred accounts, which include more than forty holdings of over £10,000 It appears that out of sixty-eight thousand eight hundred letters posted by the Bank of England authorities, notifying the conversion of stock, no fewer than twelve thousand seven hundred were returned through the Dead Letter Office, owing to change of address, and the bank learned for the first time that hundreds of stockholders were dead and their representatives unknown. It may here be convenient to state the mode in which unclaimed dividends on government stocks are ordinarily dealt with. After ten years' non-claim, the dividends are transferred to the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt till claimants appear. On a claimant appearing, but not till then, the Bank of England advertise for further claimants, giving (1) the amount and denomination of the stock; (2) the date of the transfer to the National Debt Commissioners; (3) the name, address, and description of the claimant; and (4) the name, address, and description of the person who originally held the stock, with an intimation that unless a better claim is made within three months, the stock and dividends will be re-transferred. The above particulars would be infinitely more valuable to many persons interested if published at the date of the transfer to the National Debt Commissioners, and afterwards as a schedule to the annual parliamentary return on the subject, which at present gives very little information, as will be seen by the following extracts: On April 4, 1889, the dividends "due and not demanded "amounted to £550,548, 2s. ; on July 4, £419,959, 145. 6d. ; on October 4, £439,511, 17s. 3d.; and on January 4, 1890, £409,207, 11s. 4d.the greater portion whereof being advanced to the government. It is curious to contrast this return with a similar one issued ten years ago. The figures were then as follows: On April 4, 1879, the dividends "due and not demanded" amounted to £923,822, 25. Id.; on July 4, £836,367, 17s.; on October 4, £868,435, 18s. 6d.; and on January 3, 1880, £856,010, 17s. 8d. It would there. fore seem that the unclaimed dividends are essening much more quickly than the na- | valuables deposited in a bank in Dublin, It is worth noting here, as an exemplifi- eral are crested with a coat of arms, supposed to be those of Viscount Netterville. No. 3. Box containing thirty-nine articles of plate, some of them bearing a coronet. No. 4. Box containing diamonds and articles of jewellery, lodged by Dr. Andrew Blake and George Jennings on December The Bank of England is also custodian over. Sometimes it happens that deposits are made, and, strange as it may appear, totally forgotten by the owners. A remark. able case of this description came before the late Vice-Chancellor Malins, in which it appeared that a lady died at Marseilles at the great age of ninety-eight, who, although entitled to £56,000 in the Funds, and to more than £20,000 accumulated dividends, was constantly borrowing money from her relatives; from which it may be inferred that this large deposit had escaped the lady's memory. It is not undeserving of notice that in No complete list of these unclaimed a schedule to the annual Parliamentary boxes has ever been published; conse- return issued by the Supreme Court of quently, one often sees advertisements | Judicature (England), is given a list of seeking clues to such deposits. The following are examples: "Information required as to the whereabouts of a quantity of diamonds, jewellery, and plate belonging to the late Madame Marie who died at St. Pancras, after a residence of fifty years in London. Apply to, solicitors." "Bankers, brokers, solicitors, and others having any bonds, moneys, or other property of Sarah Ann ceased, of Great Marlow, Bucks, are quested to communicate with Mr. solicitor." unclaimed boxes and other miscellaneous effects deposited in the Bank of England, belonging to suitors or their representatives. The following are the more curious items: A bag of clipped money, in Jones v. Lloyd, August, 1726; a box containing small articles of jewellery; a sealed envelope containing a promissory note for £400 in favor of John Spilman; a paper de- marked " George Colman, Will; a dere-benture dated 1799; Bouverie v. Jacques, plate, etc.; Salm Kyrburg v. Pomansky, said to contain bills of exchange for twenty-five thousand francs; E. A. Williams, deceased, plate, jewellery, and presentation plate; Lousada's estate, diamond brooch bequeathed to wife of G. A. Lousada; Joshua Blackburn, a person of unsound mind, plate and jewellery (six wooden and four tin boxes); Wade Gery v. Handley, heirlooms (two boxes). If all the boxes lying unclaimed for ten years or longer in the cellars of the Banks of England and Ireland, at Coutts', Drummonds', Child's and other well-known bankers, were unearthed and their contents examined, wonderful treasures, in the shape of plate, jewellery, and other valuables might be handed over to the representatives of the original depositors. Many missing title-deeds, wills, and other valuable documents might also be restored to their rightful owners. The following extract from an advertisement issued in 1881, by order of the Court of Chancery, Ireland, with a view to discover the real owners of the following The suitors' moneys have proved of great value for national debt purposes; for instance, in 1881, Mr. Gladstone borrowed no less than forty million of these funds. Moreover, the surplus interest has been treated as a banker's profit, and one million, part thereof, applied towards the erection of the royal courts of justice. |