78 TBE MODEL MERCHANT 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



To PAGE 25. 



It would be not a little singular if, as my friend Mr. Albert Way 

 suggests, the Bow Bell should have been cast at Gloucester, one of the 

 earliest bell foundries in England having been established there : 

 John of Gloucester was a celebrated founder at that place in the 

 reign of Edward III. The monks of Ely employed him to make four 

 monster bells, and it is by no means improbable that the authorities 

 of Bow, in Cheape, may also have engaged the services of that cele- 

 brated man. There must have been something peculiar in the tone of 

 the beU to recall our young friend to his duty. Had he heard the bell 

 of the Abbey at Gloucester, and was there a similarity of tone in the 

 great beU of Bow, which reminded him of his native County, and 

 the undesirablcness of returning to the place whence he had fled ? 

 Home, under the circumstances suggested in the theory of our bio- 

 graphy, would be the last place to which the truant would wish to 

 return ; better to go back to his employment and make the best of it. 



To PAGE 29. 



There are, however, even better reasons to be assigned for the 

 tradition that London Bridge was built on woolsacks. We find that 

 Henry II. ordered a tax to be levied on the people, of no less than sue 

 shillings and eight pence upon every sack of wool of twenty-six stone 

 weight, which levy was assigned to the building of London Bridge : 

 and Edward I.^ set a new toll of forty shillings upon eveiy sack of 



c Tatcnt Rolls, Exchequer. 3 Edw. I. A.D. 1274. 



