TALLY. This word appears to be derived from the French taille, or tallier, each of which expresses the idea of cutting or notching.
The use of notched sticks or tallies may be traced to a very remote period, and there is reason to believe that they were among the earliest means devised for keeping accounts. Some writers conceive that the Greek symbolum (c-onfloaos) was in some cases a species of tally, which was used between contracting parties ; being broken in two, and one half given to each. Upon tablets of wood called axonts the Athenians inscribed the laws of Solon ; and the ancient Britons used to cut their alphabet with a knife upon a stick, which, thus inscribed, was called Coelbren y Beirdd, " the billet of signs of the bards," or the Bardic alphabet. These sticks were commonly squared, but were sometimes three-sided ; each side, in either case, containing one line of writing. Another illustration, of later date, is the clog-almanac, described by Dr. Plot, in 1686, as then common in Staffordshire. Such calendars, which had the various days marked by notches of different forms and sizes, were sometimes made small enough to carry in the pocket, and sometimes larger, for hanging up in the house. Similar calendars are said to have been formerly used in Sweden. Perhaps the most curious of these tallies is the Saxon Reive-Pole, which, down to a recent period, was used in the Isle of Portland for collecting the yearly rent paid to the crown as lord of the manor. This rent, which amounts to 141.14s. 3d., is collected by the reive, or steward, every Michaelmas; the sum which each person has to pay being scored upon a squared pole, a portion of which is represented in the subjoined cut, with figures to mark the amount indicated by each notch. " The black circle at the top denotes the parish of Southwell, and that side of the pole contains the account of the tax paid by the parishioners ; each person's account being divided from that of his neighbour by the circular indentations between each. In the present instance the first pays 24d., the second 4s. 2d., the next one farthing, and so on." The other aide of the pole which is represented in the cut is appropriated to the parish of 'Waken', of which the cross within a circle is the distinctive mark.
The tallies used in the Exchequer (one of which is represented by fig. 2) answered the purpose of receipts as well as simple records of matters of account. They consisted of squared rods of hazel or other wood, upon one side of which was marked, by notches, the sum for which the tally was an acknowledgment; one kind of notch standing for 10001., another for 1001., another for 20/., and others for 20s., is.,
ke. On two other sides of the tally, opposite to each other, the amount of the sum, the name of the payer, and the date of the trans action, were written by an officer called the writer of the tallies ; and, after this was done, the stick was cleft longitudinally in such a manner that each piece retained one of the written sides, and one-half of every notch cut in the tally. One piece was then delivered to the person who had paid in the money, for which it was a receipt or acquittance, while the other was preserved in the Exchequer. Madox observes, respecting these•rude and primitive records, "The use of them was vary ancient ; coeval, for aught I know, with the Exchequer itself in England." They were finally discontinued at the remodelling of the. Exchequer in 1334 ; and it is worthy of recollection that the fire by which the Houses of Parliament were destroyed was supposed to have originated in the over-heating of the flues in which the discarded tallies were being burnt. Clumsy as the contrivance may appear, tallies were effectual in the prevention of forgery, since no ingenuity could produce a false tally which should perfectly correspond with the counter-tally preserved at the Exchequer; and no alteration of the sum expressed by the notches and the inscription could pass undetected when the two parts of the stick were fitted together. The officers of the Exchequer, commonly called tellers (Where), as well as several other functionaries, derived their name from the word tally.
Tally Trade.—The word tally has come to mean a counterpart, although no cutting of a wooden tally is necessary. Thus, in the tally-drapers' trade carried on at the present time in various parts of the kingdom, there are 10,000 or 12,000 persons employed in the dis tribution of clothing or drapery which has cost them 7,000,000/. or 8,000,000/. annually, and which is re-sold by them on the tally system. They receive weekly payments from their customers ; and these pay ments are recorded on a tally and a counter-tally ; these are books, one of which is kept by the buyer and the other by the seller. Here the tally is a record of payments, as In the olden days, but maintained in a different form. There are tally-shops, also, where weekly payments are taken for goods bought; these differ from the tally-drapery trade chiefly in this—that in the latter the goods are taken round tally-men, who keep no shops.