230 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF sciENCE.—1917. 
have been found sets of these scales and weights, the weights being sometimes 
made from Roman coins rubbed down to the required size.° 
All the early forms of money-scales are of the well-known type, with a balance- 
beam and two suspended brass pans, somewhat similar to the familiar copper 
scales in use in grocers’ shops to-day, excepting that the coin scales have shallow 
pans. With very slight variations this type has been in vogue for two thousand 
years, being in use in this country up to half a century ago. In recent times 
the difficulty of making counterfeit coins without detection has been so great 
that testing coins for weight and size is almost unknown. The withdrawal of 
various kinds of foreign coins in England has also assisted in scales being 
dispensed with. Formerly, however, coiners and coin-clippers were so much in 
evidence that the Beggars’ Litany ‘from Hull, Hell, and Halifax, Good Lord 
deliver us’ is said to have originated from the fact that at Hull and Halifax, 
at any rate, coiners were punished with unusual severity. 
The earliest iliustration of a pair of English coin-scales that I have been able 
to trace is dated 1496, and occurs in Vetusta Monuwmenta, vol. i. 1747. It is on 
a plate described as ‘The Standard of Antient Weights and Measures, from a 
table in the Exchequer. From the original Table formerly in the Treasury of 
the Kings (sic) Exchequer at Westminster, and now preserved in the MS. 
Library of the late Earl of Oxford, anno 12 Henrici Septimi [1496], N.B. 
The original Parchment is fix’t on an oak table.’ On this there are illustra- 
tions of various kinds of weights and measures, a view of the Exchequer, a man 
in the pillory for giving short weight, &c. 
From the centre of this document we learn that ‘By the discrecion & 
Ordinaunce of or-soueraigne lorde ye kinge & of his lordes spuall & tepall 
wth ye commons of ye same his realme of England of all manr of weight and 
measure yt was made by ye grayne of wheate. This is to understande yt xxxjj 
graynes of wheat taken out of ye middell of ye yeare weieth a starlinge other- 
wise called a penny & xx starlinge maketh an ounce,’ &c. 
In the top left-hand corner of this remarkable document are illustrations of 
‘The Whete eare,’ with the information that ‘ Two graynes maketh ye xvj pte 
of a penny. The conage of ye mynte ffower graynes maketh the viij pt of a 
penny. The iiij] pte of a penny is a farthinge, xvj graynes an halpeny, the 
halpeny wth ye peny and halpeny and the farthinge is all poore mens, upon 
all manner of vitelers of the realme.... ‘The cuynars to be sworne in 
speciallie yt ye thirde pte of ye Bullion be made in halpence & farthings, 
yt is to saie that one half of the saide third in halpens & ye other in 
farthings.’ 
Accompanying this quaint information is a sketch of a pair of coin-scales 
with a penny (on edge) in one tray, the other being full of grains, presumably 
thirty-two. It is to be hoped that the eccentric fork to the scales is merely 
an error in the drawing ! 
It occasionally happens that representations of antique money-scales occur 
on old pictures. Perhaps one of the most interesting examples cf these is 
‘The Banker and his Wife’ by Corneille de Lyon, which was at Antwerp 
before the war. In this case a gold piece is about to be weighed in a pair of 
scales with triangular pans, the weights being square; on the table is the box 
for the scales, with twenty-four oblong pans for the weights. Similar old sets 
of scales are shown on the picture by Quentin Matsys in the Louvre, in 
‘The Misers’ at Windsor Castle, and other paintings in the National Gallery 
and elsewhere.” 
In the middle of the seventeenth century a ‘steelyard’ type of scale was 
in use in Ireland for weighing coins, an illustraticn cf which appears with the 
following ‘ Extracts from the Journal of Thomas Dineley, Esqr., giving some 
account of his visit to Ireland in the reign of Charles IJ.’ ® :— 
‘I'he most usual money and that which passeth in the greatest quantity of 
° For illustrations see Znventorium Sepulchrale, 1856, pp. 22-23, and Archeo- 
logia Cantiana, vol. vi. 1866, pp. 157-185. 
7 See Burlington Magazine, vol. xx. No. 107, February 1912. 
§ Journ. Kilkenny Arch, Soc., vol. ii. N.S. 1858-9. 
