Answer.—Falconry, or hawking, was a favorite sport with the nobility and gentry of Europe down to the first half of the seventeenth century, when the introduction of fowling pieces of a light and elegant pattern and the art of shooting flying gradually replaced it. Hawks were trained to mount and pursue game and bring it to their masters and mistresses, coming and going at the call of the latter with marvelous docility. The hawks were tricked out with gay hoods and held until ordered to pursue “the quarry,” or game, by leathern straps fastened with rings of leather around each leg, just above the talons, and silken cords called “jesses.” To each of these leathern straps, or “bewets,” was attached a small bell, shaped in most cases like the nearly closed sleigh bells of the present time. In a flight of hawks it was often so arranged that the different bells made “a consort of sweet sounds.” Bells of this description, but of the cheapest kind, were among the most popular trinkets used by the early explorers and traders in bartering with the natives of America.
SOURCES OF BRITISH REVENUE.
Sycamore, Ill.
As England receives little or nothing from a tariff, where does the money come from to pay the expenses of the government? Who are taxed and who are not?
R. A. S.
Answer.—It is a mistake to suppose that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland derives “little or no revenue from tariff” or custom dues. The following table shows the sources of the national revenue for the year ending March 31, 1882:
| Customs | £19,287,000 |
| Excise | 27,240,000 |
| Stamps | 12,260,000 |
| Land and house tax | 2,725,000 |
| Income tax | 9,945,000 |
| Postoffice | 7,000,000 |
| Telegraphs | 1,630,000 |
| Crown lands | 380,000 |
| Interest on advances and Suez Canal shares | 1,219,262 |
| Miscellaneous | 4,136,019 |
| Total | £85,822,281 |
Here is the sum of £19,287,000, or almost $100,000,000, received from customs, as against $220,410,730.25 collected from the same source in the United States. 2, The inland revenue, composed of “excise, stamps, and taxes,” is so distributed as to touch pretty much everybody.