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the British Museum, where, with his own catalogue, it was placed in 1856. We are glad to think that his exceptional and longcontinued labours as an antiquary met with a graceful recognition in the spring of the present year, when a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Dr. Evans, president of the Society of Antiquaries, for the purpose of striking a gold medal in Mr. Roach Smith's honour, the balance of the fund to be handed to him, "in recognition of his lifelong and invaluable services in the cause of archæology."

Mr. Roach Smith was a not infrequent con

tributor to the columns of the Antiquary; his last contribution of any length was a paper on the "Roman Walls of Chester," that appeared in February, 1889. When a new series of the Antiquary was started at the beginning of the current year, it was with the hearty goodwill of Mr. Roach Smith, who wrote a kindly note, prophetic of success, to the present editor. When the circular was issued, Mr. Roach Smith, in good-humoured banter, objected to being styled "veteran," and wrote: "I hope to contribute to the new series of the Antiquary for years to come. Of course I am old, but why call me 'veteran'? It sounds as if I was on the shelf." Several of the "Notes of the Month" of the present year are from his pen. His last letter to us was about a projected paper-a paper, alas,

that he did not live to finish. R. I. P.

Notes of the Month (Foreign).

POMPEII was again visited by Prof. Halbherr on August 1, when he found the large house he described in our last number not yet completely excavated. The fresh works, however, had revealed the existence of another corridor leading from the upper city, near which was a passage giving access to a small chapel, very low and narrow, having an altar, probably for the Lares. On a small ledge before the altar can still be seen, undisturbed, a terra-cotta lamp and several

small vases, probably for incense and perfumes, together with some other terra-cotta fragments, but without mark or inscription. of any kind.

Prof. Sogliano, of the University of Naples, who is now directing the excavations at Pompeii, intends continuing them along the line of walls at the furthest end of the prehistoric mound of lava, in the direction of the sea gate (the present entrance to Pompeii), thus insulating the Basilica, and later on the porta marina itself, which forms one of the most interesting characteristics of the city. * *

of marble, serpentine, etc., mentioned last month, have now been taken down from the wall, and are being fixed, together with the dedicatory inscriptions, all found last June, in the small museum at Pompeii.

The floral decorations of the wainscot band

Sig. Fiorelli announces the discovery of fresh inscriptions belonging to the fourth and fifth centuries, from the soldiers' burial-place at Concordia-Sagittaria, which throw very welcome light on the state of the Roman army towards the end of the Empire. Some of the tituli are inscribed on stones, which had already been used for the same purpose in the days of the first Cæsars. One precious fragment of classic times thus accidentally preserved to us by the parsimony or carelessness of a later age, is an honorary dedication to P. Cominius Clemens, which confirms a conjecture of Henzen, made in reference to another Concordian inscription, that he obtained his honours under Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.

*

In the Commune of Zanica, in Bergamasco, a tomb of the first age of the Empire has been discovered, containing a rich collection of funereal deposits, all of which are well preserved. They consist of glass cups, vases of terra-cotta with coralline glazing, fictile objects of local manufacture, and various pieces of iron.

Near Forli, Commune of Fiumana, a preRoman tomb has been disinterred, and also a bronze statuette at Villanova, Commune of Vecchiazzano, a prehistoric settlement.

In Rome the latest discoveries have been a bit of old road near the church of St. Gregory at the Botanical Gardens; fresh fragments of the dedications placed on the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus by the kings and peoples of Asia Minor, after the war with Mithridates; a fragment of the Calendar in marble; remains of the enclosure of the baths of Diocletian (in the garden of the Deaf and Dumb Institution, formerly at the Piazza di Termini); and two cippi belonging to the boundary on the right hand of the Tiber (found at the Prati di Castello). Of the last mentioned stones, one is the fourteenth of the series, and refers to the boundary fixed by Augustus, A.U.C. 747; the other, of which only the lower portion is preserved, belongs to the limit settled by Trajan, A.D. IOI.

Another milestone of the Via Appia has been found at Arcorotto, near Minturno, where various antiquities and inscriptions had been found before. It belongs to the length of road between Minturno and Sinuessa, and bears the number 98 already observed on another stone now at Minturno, which is referred to the repairs of the Appian Road under Maxentius.

The death is announced of Mr. Pelopidas D. Couppa, an architect, who fell from the top of a building at Constantinople. He was a native of Cephalonia, and had become a local authority on Byzantine archeology, on which he had given lectures at the Greek Institution. He was the keeper of the collections of the Institution, which are now fairly good. His special reputation was acknowledged, and he was entrusted by the Ottoman Government in 1877 with the restoration of a mosque, the Kahrieh Jamisi. In manuscript he has left a history of Byzantine architecture, and a description of the mosque.

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HE Barbers' Company is rank

ed the seventeenth in

order of the City Companies, and is the fifth after the "Twelve (Great Companies," the thirteenth being the Dyers', the fourteenth the Brewers', the fifteenth the Leathersellers', and the sixteenth the Pewterers. But in historical interest the rank of this Company is certainly far higher than the mere order of formal precedence might seem to warrant.

The origin and records of this Company, that have now for the first time met with a

capable chronicler, are of peculiar interest.

The Barbers' Guild, formed certainly as

*The Annals of the Barber-Surgeons of London, compiled from their records and other sources by Sidney Young, with illustrations by Austin T. Young. 4to.; pp. xii., 624; profusely illustrated. Price £2 25. Blades, East, and Blades.

The initial letter T is reduced from one in the audit-book of the Company, 1612-13. The original grant of arms to the Barber-Surgeons was in 1451: sab., a chevron between three fleams, arg., the fleams being mediæval lancets. The arms as they appear in the above initial letter were a new and augmented grant of the year 1568.

early as the first part of the thirteenth century, was chiefly of a religious character. Its regulations enjoined charity, attendance at the funerals and obits of deceased members; and though some of the early rules also dealt with such questions as the enticing away of servants of others, and providing for the amicable settlement of disputes, there was nothing in them that applied to any special trade regulations. But by the end of the thirteenth century, or previous at least to 1308, the Company partook of the nature of a trade guild, in addition to its religious and charitable obligations. The first express entry concerning the Company is the presentation and admission in December, 1308, of Richard le Barber as supervisor or master of the barbers, before the Court of Aldermen. At this time the barbers were engaged in the minor surgical operations, such as bleeding, tooth-drawing, and cauterization. Up to the twelfth century, the practice of both surgery and medicine was confined almost exclusively to the regular clergy, but the Council. of Tours, in 1163, considered that the shedding of blood was incompatible with the sacred functions of the ministry, and forbad the priesthood any longer to practise surgery. The clergy up to this time had frequently employed the barbers as their assistants in surgical operations, and this edict of Tours put an opportunity within their grasp which they were not slow to seize. Henceforth it was usual for the barber to practise surgery on his own account, and to be usually designated as barber-surgeon.

The London Company of Barbers, in 1308, was, however, composed of two classes of members, those who were barbers proper, but also bled and drew teeth, and those who almost exclusively practised surgery, and who were technically termed barber-surgeons; nevertheless, the latter name was occasionally used for both classes. There existed also in the City, coeval with the Company of Barbers, an entirely separate guild or fraternity of surgeons. The Guild of Surgeons was smaller in numbers, and apparently less influential than that of the barbers; these rival Companies, as might be expected, were often in antagonism-throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. During this period the barbers successfully maintained

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purposes. This theatre was pulled down in 1784, and houses erected on the site. The livery hall was burnt down in the Great Fire, the present one being its immediate successor. But in the court-room, or parlour, which is said to be "one of the best proportioned and prettiest rooms in London," the work of Inigo Jones, is still extant. give a sketch of the old entrance to the courtyard of the Barber-Surgeons' Hall; it was built in 1671. Hogarth has commemorated the theatre in his ghastly representation of the dissection of a criminal. This theatre, and its remarkably sparse collection of curios, is described in Hatton's New View of London, 1708, as "built in an elliptical form, and commodiously fitted up with four degrees of seats of cedar-wood, and adorned with figures of the seven liberal sciences and the twelve signs of the zodiac. Also containing the skeleton of an ostrich put up by Dr. Hobbs, 1682, with a busto of King Charles I.; two humane skins on the wood frames, of a man and woman, in imitation of Adam and Eve, put up in 1645; a mummy skull, given by Mr. Loveday 1655; the skeleton of Atherton, with copper joints (he was executed), given by Mr. Knowles in 1693; the figure of a man dead, where all the muscles appear in due place and proportion, done after the life; the skeletons of Cambery Bess and Country Tom (as they call them), 1638; and three other skeletons of humane bodies."

In Mr. Young's handsome volume, liberal and most interesting use is made of the court minutes of the Company, which date back to 1551. The court of the BarberSurgeons in Elizabethan days exercised a remarkably wide control over the conduct of the city surgeons. Surgeons had to present to the court the names and cases of any of their patients who were in danger of death. On February 12, 1573, is entered: "Here was John Frend, and was comaunded to lay downe his fyne for not presentinge Mr. Watson of the Towre, wch dyed of Gangrene in his fote, and he pd xvs." On a second conviction for a like offence, Mr. Frend was committed to prison. Other presentations to the court of the same period show how ready they were to hear the complaints of patients, and to suspend incompetent

practitioners from the power of doing mischief.

"21st April, 1573.-Here was one to complaine of one John Burges for not delinge well wth hym in his cure concernynge a sore arme, and he is to be warned the next court."

"7th Sept. 1574.-Here was John Griffen complayned uppon William Pownsabe for gevinge him a powder wch loossed all the teeth in his head, wch John Griffen had the disease wch we call de morbo gallico."

"15th March, 1576.-Here was a complainte determyed upon wch was made against Tho: Hoder, and for that he was provde ignorant he is bounde in xlli never to medle in any matter of Surgery."

Space forbids us making any further extracts from these minutes, or even doing more than indicating some of the considerable and un

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expected variety of subjects to which they refer -such as the strewing of herbs, the detection of lepers, the impressment of surgeons for the army and navy, the fights at the gallows for the bodies of criminals, the Christmas-box to the hangman, the letting of the hall for weddings, the execution of the burglar who stole the Company's plate, the chained books, manuscripts, and catalogues of the library, the expenses of the barge, the arrest of a woman surgeon, the resuscitation of several executed criminals, the buying of sweetbriars for the garden, etc.

One section of the volume deals fully with the plate pertaining to the Company. Much has been lost, and still more was parted with during the troublous times of the Great Rebellion. On March 19, 1649, the Company were so severely pressed by assessments for the army, that they resolved, being unable to borrow any more money under their corporate

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