VOL. XIX. (3) 
THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS 
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house without it. In Pembrokeshire, you may supply your 
needing neighbour with salt, but on no account must he 
return it ; so, you must always tell him to keep it. The 
supposed ill-luck of being helped to salt is averted by receiving 
a second help. This reverses things. 
Salt is, of course, also used as a charm by disappointed 
Christian lovers, by throwing it into the fire on three suc- 
cessive Fridays. 
It is not this salt I wish to burn ; 
It is my lover’s heart to turn. 
That he may not rest nor happy be 
Until he comes and speaks to me ! 
Here, it may be propitiatory of the Symbolic, or sacred, 
flame of Love. 
In the earliest stories of Rome we hear of great gifts of 
salt being made to the Roman people by King Ancus Martins. 
‘ The sun and the salt ’ was a Roman proverbial saying. Hence, 
the origin of the Via Salaria, or Salt-way, and the city gate 
called Porta Salaria even till to-day. There was in early 
days a certain allowance of salt given all officers and soldiers 
in Rome. This became in time converted into a money 
allowance. From this, we obtained the term ‘ salary.’ The 
Roman trade in salt became a State-monoply, even as early 
as the Decemvirate ; and it is a monopoly (together with 
tobacco) there in Italy, to-day : ‘ Sale e tabacchi.’ Salerno, 
near by, took its name from the river. Sale, meaning salt. I 
have seen a boatman arrested by the police, at Amalfi, near by, 
and another, in Sicily, for soaking his clothes in sea-water and 
drying them in the sun so as to get the salt crust from them, and 
thus evade ‘ custom.’ In the Middle Ages, Venice was a great 
provider of salt. We read of caravans numbering annually 
40,000 horse, employed between Austria, Hungary, and 
Germany for fetching away her salt. 
It is thus easy to understand how it came to pass that the 
Roman family salt-cellar,' like our own, was usually of silver, 
I The word ‘ salt-cellnr ’ is an anomaly. ‘ Cellar ’ is merely a corruption of Fr. Salieri, a ‘ salt- 
seller,’ Italian Saliera. It is equivalent to salt — salt-holder ! ! The spelling with c is quite modern. 
[cf. Skeat. Etym. Diet.) 
Most of the ' salts ’ were ornamental only. A smaller salt, called a ‘ Trencher,’ was actually 
used. Sometimes the cellar was made like a chariot on wheels, and some cellars were fashioned like 
silver dogs. 
