"Remainder."—This word was in common use in the book-trade in the early part of the nineteenth century, as is evidenced from the following extract from the Report of a Select Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1802 to consider the reasons for the high price of paper:—
"Mr. William Cobbett, Bookseller and Printer, states that he has been a bookseller and printer in England since the summer of 1800; that to the present period his trade has encreased both in England and to America; that he does not conceive the general trade to have been diminished by any operation of the duty of 2½d. per lb. on printing paper imposed in April, 1801; and that he is engaged in a large publication which he could go on with to advantage, even if that duty was doubled. Being asked, if the trade to America did not in part consist of remainders of editions? he said, 1t did……"
The above is taken from 'Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, 1793-1802,' vol. xiv. p. 165, col. 1. The document contains some very interesting particulars relating to conditions of the stationery and printing trades at the date above mentioned. Evidence was given by the representatives of at least two firms whose names are well known in the paper trade at this moment. The earliest quotation in the 'N.E.D.' illustrating this meaning of the word "remainder" is dated 1873. R. B. P.
"The Broad Arrow": the King's Mark. (See 11 S. ix. 481.)—During a recent visit to Australia I had, thanks to the kindness of Mr. W. H. Ifould, Principal Librarian of the Public Library of New South Wales, an opportunity of prosecuting a further search as to when the broad arrow was first stamped upon prisoners' clothing.
Although the date was not ascertained, the following two extracts, taken from The Sydney Gazette, are interesting, as they bear upon the subject of the desirability of a distinctive dress or badge being worn by the prisoners, and this is urged even as late as 1837:—
"7. For the purpose of avoiding, as much as possible, the necessity for resorting to Corporal Punishments, His Excellency has deemed it advisable to establish Government Gaol Gangs at the three principal Townships in the Interior; …… and to these places of Punishment, Convicts found guilty of serious Offences are to be sent, to be employed at hard Labour for a limited Period of Weeks, or Months, according to the measure of their Offences, instead of undergoing Corporal Chastisement: and in order to brand their ill Conduct with a public Mark of Disgrace and to distinguish them from the better behaved, they are to be clothed in a party-coloured Dress, half Black and half White, which they are to wear at all Times during the time they are sentenced for."—Sydney Gazette and Government General Orders, Saturday, Sept. 10, 1814.
Speaking of the impropriety of permitting convicts to dress (in Sydney) in the preposterous manner hitherto allowed them, the writer goes on to state that
"in England the convict is provided with a particular clothing, which shews at once the man to be a convict. But he no sooner sets his foot on this blessed soil, than he gets, in outward appearance at least, metamorphosed from the prisoner to the gentleman, as if the country he is exiled to for his crimes, is to be to him a desirable place of residence, instead of one of penal restraint.
"Such unquestionably is the fact in hundreds of instances, and this is the way in which transportation is made 'worse than death'!
"Double and treble convicted scoundrels are allowed to infest our streets with long coats and Wellington boots……
"Now, we cannot see the necessity of altering the dress of the convicts from the proper grey suit of coarse cloth to the supefrfine blue and black……
"They should……one and all be compelled to wear a distinguishing badge, and be very severely dealt with, if ever found without this necessary appendage to their dress ……The love of dress is carried to as great an extent among the male prisoners, as among the female.
"We have seen them dressed most fashionably! How truly singular will such an announcement as this sound in the ears of our English readers! It will show them that under the present fostering local government, the life of the convict is in many respects an enviable one; that in nine cases out of ten they better their condition by being sent to Botany Bay.
"We do unhesitatingly affirm, that, take them as a body, they are far better off than the labouring class of the 'Mother Country."—Sydney Gazette, Thursday, April 20, 1837, p. 2.
Visscher's 'View of London.'—According to Mr. T. F. Ordish, "the identity of the engraver who first produced this very fine picture of London requires elucidation" (London Topographical Record, vol. vi., 1909).
The view is signed "J. C. (or C. J.) Visscher delineavit," the three initials being combined in a monogram. Mr. Ordish assumed that the artist was "Nicholas John" Visscher, meaning thereby Claes Jansz Visscher, while according to Dr. Alfred v. Wurzbach's 'Niederlaendisches Kuenstler-Lexikon' (1910) the way the initials are placed and formed in a monogram seems to point to Jan Claesz Visscher, the father of Claes, who was busy at Amsterdam at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
I must point out that final z and sz stand for zoon (i.e., the son of). Hence, even if Mr. Ordish has picked out the right man, he
