Wool Measure.—Seven pounds make a clove, 2 cloves a stone, 2 stones a tod, 6.1 tods a wey, 2 weys a sack, 12 sacks a last. The Pathway' points out the ety mology of the word cloves ; it calls them " claves or nails." It is to be observed here that a sack is 13 tods, and a tod 28 pounds, so that the sack is 364 pounds. Jeake says this was arranged (31 Edward III. cap. 8) according to the lunar year of 13 months of 28 days each. The rea son no doubt was that the multitudes of whose occupation the spinning of wool formed a part might instantly be able to calculate the supply for the year or month from the amount of the day's work ; a pound a day being a tod a month and a sack a year.
Tale or Reckoning.—If we were to collect every mode of counting, this would be the largest head of all. The dozen, the gross of 12 dozen, and the score, are the only denominations not immediately contained in the common system of nu meration, which are universally received; and in all cases, by a dozen, a score, a hundred, a thousand, &c., were signified different numbers, composed of the arith metical dozen, score, &c., together with the allowances usually made upon taking quantities of different goods. The
" baker's dozen," for instance, which has passed into a proverb, arose from its being usual in many places to give 13 penny loaves for a shilling. The in creased dozen, hundred, &c., were some times called the long dozen, long hundred, &c.; and this phrase is sometimes heard in our own day, when a dear price is called a "long price." The 12 dozen was formerly called the small gross, and 12 small gross made the great gross. The hundred was more frequently 120 than 100, the thousand generally ten hundred. Ten thousand was frequently called a last ; and it is to be observed that the word last was frequently (almost usually) applied to the highest measure of one given kind. The shock was always 60; the dicar, or dicker, always 10, as the name imports. In measuring paper (1594) the quire was 25 sheets, the ream 20 quires, and the bale 10 reams. By 1650 the practice of reckoning 24 sheets to the quire (now universal) had been in troduced as to some sorts of paper. Tale fish, as those were called which were allowed to be sold by tale, were (22 Edw. IV. cap. 2) such as measured from the , bone of the fin to the third joint of the tail 16 inches at least.