"Here, Friend, is little Daniel's Tomb,
To Joseph's age he did arrive;
Sloth killing thousands in their bloom,
While labour kept poor Dan alive.
Though strange yet true, full seventy years
Was his wife happy in her Tears.
Daniel Tear died December 9th, 1787, aged 110 years."
C. T. R.
Straw-bail (Vol. vii., pp. 85. 342.).—The origin of the expression "a man of straw" may be traced to those mannikins or effigies representing the human figure, which are (or used to be) paraded in the streets during the Carnival in most continental countries. These mannikins were
generally stuffed with straw; and hence, in legal phraseology, "a man of straw" denotes the semblance of a man—a person of neither substance nor responsibility, who is put forward to screen a real delinquent, or bear the brunt of a prosecution. Such, at least, is the origin commonly assigned by the French to their "homme de paille," the prototype of our "man of straw."