rules from this part of finance, and indicate the connexion with what the commercial world calls “financial operations.”
Finally, there is the same set of problems in respect to accounting and control in local as in central finance. Though the materials are simpler, the need for a well-prepared budget is existent in the case of the city, county or department, if there is to be clear and accurate financial management. Perhaps the greatest weakness of local finance lies in this direction. The public opinion that affects the national budget is unfortunately too often lacking in the most important towns, not excluding those in which political life is highly developed.
Bibliography.—The English literature on finance is rather unsatisfactory; for public finance the available text-books are: Adams, Science of Finance (New York, 1898); Bastable, Public Finance (London, 1892; 3rd ed., 1903); Daniels, Public Finance (New York, 1899), and Plehn, Public Finance (3rd ed., New York, 1909). In French, Leroy-Beaulieu, Traité de la science des finances (1877; 3rd ed., 1908), is the standard work. The German literature is abundant. Roscher, 5th ed. (edited by Gerlach), 1901; Wagner (4 vols.), incomplete; Cohn (1889) and Eheberg (9th ed., 1908) have published works entitled Finanzwissenschaft, dealing with all the aspects of state finance. For Greek financial history Boekh, Staalshaushaltung der Athenen (ed. Fränkel, 1887), is still a standard work. For Rome, Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, vol. ii., and Humbert, Les Finances et la comptabilité publique chez les Romains, are valuable. Clamageran, Histoire de l’impôt en France (1876), gives the earlier development of French finance. R. H. Patterson, Science of Finance (London, 1868), C. S. Meade, Trust Finance (1903), and E. Carroll, Principles and Practice of Finance, deal with finance in the wider sense of business transactions. (C. F. B.)
FINCH, FINCH-HATTON. This old English family has had
many notable members, and has contributed in no small degree
to the peerage. Sir Thomas Finch (d. 1563), who was knighted
for his share in suppressing Sir T. Wyatt’s insurrection against
Queen Mary, was a soldier of note, and was the son and heir of
Sir William Finch, who was knighted in 1513. He was the
father of Sir Moyle Finch (d. 1614), who was created a baronet
in 1611, and whose widow Elizabeth (daughter of Sir Thomas
Heneage) was created a peeress as countess of Maidstone in 1623
and countess of Winchilsea in 1628; and also of Sir Henry
Finch (1558–1625), whose son John, Baron Finch of Fordwich
(1584–1660), is separately noticed. Thomas, eldest son of Sir
Moyle, succeeded his mother as first earl of Winchilsea; and
Sir Heneage, the fourth son (d. 1631), was the speaker of the
House of Commons, whose son Heneage (1621–1682), lord
chancellor, was created earl of Nottingham in 1675. The latter’s
second son Heneage (1649–1719) was created earl of Aylesford
in 1714. The earldoms of Winchilsea and Nottingham became
united in 1729, when the fifth earl of Winchilsea died, leaving
no son, and the title passed to his cousin the second earl of
Nottingham, the earldom of Nottingham having since then been
held by the earl of Winchilsea. In 1826, on the death of the ninth
earl of Winchilsea and fifth of Nottingham, his cousin George
William Finch-Hatton succeeded to the titles, the additional
surname of Hatton (since held in this line) having been assumed
in 1764 by his father under the will of an aunt, a daughter of
Christopher, Viscount Hatton (1632–1706), whose father was
related to the famous Sir Christopher Hatton.
FINCH OF FORDWICH, JOHN FINCH, Baron (1584–1660),
generally known as Sir John Finch, English judge, a member
of the old family of Finch, was born on the 17th of September
1584, and was called to the bar in 1611. He was returned to
parliament for Canterbury in 1614, and became recorder of the
same place in 1617. Having attracted the notice of Charles I.,
who visited Canterbury in 1625, and was received with an address
by Finch in his capacity as recorder, he was the following year
appointed king’s counsel and attorney-general to the queen and
was knighted. In 1628 he was elected speaker of the House of
Commons, a post which he retained till its dissolution in 1629.
He was the speaker who was held down in his chair by Holles
and others on the occasion of Sir John Eliot’s resolution on
tonnage and poundage. In 1634 he was appointed chief justice of
the court of common pleas, and distinguished himself by the active
zeal with which he upheld the king’s prerogative. Notable
also was the brutality which characterized his conduct as chief
justice, particularly in the cases of William Prynne and John
Langton. He presided over the trial of John Hampden, who
resisted the payment of ship-money, and he was chiefly responsible
for the decision of the judges that ship-money was
constitutional. As a reward for his services he was, in 1640,
appointed lord keeper, and was also created Baron Finch of
Fordwich. He had, however, become so unpopular that one of
the first acts of the Long Parliament, which met in the same
year was his impeachment. He took refuge in Holland, but had
to suffer the sequestration of his estates. When he was allowed
to return to England is uncertain, but in 1660 he was one of the
commissioners for the trial of the regicides, though he does not
appear to have taken much part in the proceedings. He died
on the 27th of November 1660 and was buried in St Martin’s
church near Canterbury, his peerage becoming extinct.
See Foss, Lives of the Judges; Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices.
FINCH (Ger. Fink, Lat. Fringilla), a name applied (but
almost always in composition—as bullfinch, chaffinch, goldfinch,
hawfinch, &c.) to a great many small birds of the order Passeres,
and now pretty generally accepted as that of a group or family—the
Fringillidae of most ornithologists. Yet it is one the extent
of which must be regarded as being uncertain. Many writers
have included in it the buntings (Emberizidae), though these
seem to be quite distinct, as well as the larks (Alaudidae), the
tanagers (Tanagridae), and the weaver-birds (Ploceidae).
Others have separated from it the crossbills, under the title of
Loxiidae, but without due cause. The difficulty which at this
time presents itself in regard to the limits of the Fringillidae
arises from our ignorance of the anatomical features, especially
those of the head, possessed by many exotic forms.
Taken as a whole, the finches, concerning which no reasonable doubt can exist, are not only little birds with a hard bill, adapted in most cases for shelling and eating the various seeds that form the chief portion of their diet when adult, but they appear to be mainly forms which predominate in and are highly characteristic of the Palaearctic Region; moreover, though some are found elsewhere on the globe, the existence of but very few in the Notogaean hemisphere can as yet be regarded as certain.
But even with this limitation, the separation of the undoubted Fringillidae[1] into groups is a difficult task. Were we merely to consider the superficial character of the form of the bill, the genus Loxia (in its modern sense) would be easily divided not only from the other finches, but from all other birds. The birds of this genus—the crossbills—when their other characters are taken into account, prove to be intimately allied on the one hand to the grosbeaks (Pinicola) and on the other through the redpolls (Aegiothus) to the linnets (Linota)—if indeed these two can be properly separated. The linnets, through the genus Leucosticte, lead to the mountain-finches (Montifringilla), and the redpolls through the siskins (Chrysomitris) to the goldfinches (Carduelis); and these last again to the hawfinches, one group of which (Coccothraustes) is apparently not far distant from the chaffinches (Fringilla proper), and the other (Hesperiphona) seems to be allied to the greenfinches (Ligurinus). Then there is the group of serins (Serinus), to which the canary belongs, that one is in doubt whether to refer to the vicinity of the greenfinches or that of the redpolls. The mountain-finches may be regarded as pointing first to the rock-sparrows (Petronia) and then to the true sparrows (Passer); while the grosbeaks pass into many varied forms and throw out a very well marked form—the bullfinches (Pyrrhula). Some of the modifications of the family are very gradual, and therefore conclusions founded on them are likely to be correct; others are further apart, and the links which connect them, if not altogether missing, can but be surmised. To avoid as much as possible prejudicing the case, we shall therefore take the different groups of Fringillidae which it is convenient to consider in this article in an alphabetical arrangement.
Of the Bullfinches the best known is the familiar bird (Pyrrhula
- ↑ About 200 species of these have been described, and perhaps 150 may really exist.
