Tal′ly.
A notched stick employed as a means of keeping accounts.
Tally-sticks were used in ancient
Egypt; one is in the
Abbott Museum, New York.
They were also employed by the Athenians.
In
England they were long issued in lieu of certificates of indebtedness to creditors of the state.
In 1696, according to
Adam Smith, this species of security was at 40 to 60 per cent discount, and bank-notes 20 per cent.
Besides accounts, other records were formerly kept upon notched sticks, as almanacs, in which red-letter days were signified by a large notch, ordinary days by small notches, etc. Such were formerly common in most
European countries.
The Runic Clog-Almanack and the
Saxon Reive Pope are of this class, and yet exist in
Sweden, and in
Staffordshire, England.
Somewhat similar was the ancient Briton
Coelbren y Beirdd, the “billet of the signs of the bards.”
The mode of keeping accounts by tallies was introduced into
England by the Normans, 1066.
Seasoned sticks of willow or hazel were provided, and these were notched on the edge to represent the amount.
Small notches represented pence; larger, shillings; still larger, pounds; proportionately larger and wider, were 10, 100, 1000 pounds. The stick being now split longitudinally, one piece was given to the creditor, and the other was laid away as a record.
When an account was presented for payment, the voucher was compared with the record.
 |
|
Exchequer tally. |
When paid, the
tally and
counter-tally were tied up together and laid away, accumulating for a long series of years.
The history of the final abandonment of the system, and the catastrophe to which the disposition of this accumulation of rubbish led, is related by
Charles Dickens, in a speech in favor of political and official reforms: —
Ages ago a mode of keeping accounts in the Exchequer, by means of notched sticks, was introduced.
In the course of time the celebrated Cocker was born and died; then Walkinghame, the author of the “Tutor's assistant” ; then a multitude of accountants, actuaries, and mathematicians, who discovered and published means of account-keeping by ordinary arithmetic, far more ready, and which, in their every-day transactions, everybody used; but official routine looked upon these notched sticks as a part of the Constitution, and the Exchequer accounts still continued to be kept by these willow tallies.
But, toward the end of the reign of George III., it occurred to some innovating and revolutionary spirit to suggest the abolition of this barbarous custom, and immediately all the red tape in all the public departments turned redder at the idea of so bold a conception; and it was not until the year 1826 that the custom of keeping these Exchequer accounts by willow tallies ceased.
In 1834 it was found that a large accumulation of these tallies had grown up in the course of time, and the question arose what was to be done with these old worm-eaten, useless bits of wood.
They were housed at Westminster.
Common-sense would have suggested that they should be given for firewood to some of the poor miserable people who abounded in that neighborhood; but official routine could not endure that, and accordingly an order was given that they should be burned privately.
They were burned in a stove in the House of Lords; but the stove being overheated by them set fire to the paneling of the room, the paneling set fire to the House of Lords, the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons, and the two houses were reduced to ashes.
See also
Clark's Commentary on Revelations II. 17.
See also ballot; abacus; arithmometer.
