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Fraser's Scottish Annual
Odds and Ends


BANKS : The first County Banks were established at Aberdeen and Glasgow in 1749.

BYRON: Lord Byron the poet was born in Holles Street, London, on the 22nd January, 1788.

BUNYAN: Thomas Bunyan, London, a descendant of John Bunyan, claims that the famous author of the Pilgrim's Progress was of Scottish descent.

BANNS OF MARRIAGE In the feudal law banns were a solemn declaration of anything, and hence arose the custom of asking banns, or giving notice before marriage.

BANKS were of Venetian origin, the first having been opened about 1150. Banking was opened at Barcelona in 1401; at Genoa, in 1407; at Amsterdam, in 1609; in London, in 1691; at Edinburgh, in 1695; and at Paris, in 1716.

BURNS: During the year ending September last (when the tourist season was practically at an end), there visited the birth-place of Burns no fewer than 42,499 persons, a number exceeding that of the previous year by 6,909,. and 4,290 more than in 1896, when the centenary year of the poet was so signally observed.

BURNS CLUB at Ayr dates from. 1801, and claims to be the oldest Burns Club in Scotland. Its first meeting was held in the cottage in which Burns was born, and among those present were friends of the poet, such as Robert Aiken, John Ballantine, and Rev. Hamilton Paul (Burns' first clerical editor); the Greenock Burns Club was organized in 1802, and that at Paisley in 1803.

BAWBEE: Bawbee took its rise from a copper coined after the death of James IV. of Scotland. He, with many of the nobility, was slain in the battle of Flodden-field. James left a son of a year old, his heir. The effigy of the infant king was struck about the year 1514, upon a coin of the value of a halfpenny. Because he was so very young, this piece of money was called the baby or bawbee.

CAPERCAILZIE: The Capercailzie or Cock of the "Woods" was re-introduced in Great Britain by Lord Fife in 1828.

CALEDONIA, MEANING OF: Several etymologies have been offered, but that generally accepted is Coille-daoiue-woodlanders.

CANADA: The population of Canada on its conquest by the British in 1763 was 65,000, inhabiting a narrow slip along the St. Lawrence.

CALCULATION: The origin of the term calculation is—In semi-civilized countries small stones were used as counters; hence the word "calculation" derived from calculus, a little pebble.

CALENDAR: The reformation of the calendar took place by statute 24 George II. c. 23 by which the legal year was ordered to commence on 1st January, 1753.

COATS OF ARMS, became hereditary in families at the latter end of the twelfth century. They took their rise from the knights painting their banners with different figures to distinguish them in the crusades.

COATS OF ARMS: A grant of a coat of arms costs above 100. The heralds first make search whether you are already entitled to use any particular arms. If none can be found, then the heralds sketch up something, and Queen's licence is sought by petition to use the same.

COINS: From 1293 to 1355 the coins of England and Scotland were of the same weight and purity; but in the last mentioned year the standard of Scotch money was, for the first time, sunk below that of England, and by successive degradations the value of Scotch money at the time of the union of the two crowns in 1603 was only a twelfth part of the whole of the value of the English money of the same denomination, it remained at this point till the Legislative union of the two kingdoms in 1707 cancelled the separate coinage of Scotland.

CROFTER SETTLEMENTS IN CANADA: In 1888 thirty families were placed on thirty-two homesteads, at Killarney, Manitoba, there being 293 of a population in the party. Additional homesteads were taken up by younger members of the families until these numbered fifty- four. At the time of the settlement there was a debt of $18,000 on the settlers for monies advanced for passage and purchase of settlers' necessaries. The following year, 1889, forty-nine families settled on homesteads at Saltcoats, the number of individuals being 282.

"EXILE OF ERIN" The "Exile of Erin " was written by Thomas Campbell.

FREE MASONRY: The Stuarts were all masons. James II. was W. G. M. during his reign.

FORTH AND CLYDE CANAL: The Forth and Clyde Canal was begun in 1768 and completed in 1790.

JOHN BULL.: The origin of this term is thus explained. The name John Bull cannot be traced beyond Queen Anne's time, when all satire entitled the "History of John Bull," was written by the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnott, the friend of Swift. The object of this satire was to throw ridicule on the politics of the Spanish succession.

LOGARITHAMS: The inventor of logarithms was Napier of Merchiston.

LINEN: The linen manufacture penetrated to Kilmarnock in 1744, to Inverary in 1748, to Fife in 1760.

MACPHERSON: ,Means "son of the parson." The term "parson" has a classical origin, and is derived from the Latin law term "persona ecclessiac."

MCGILL UNIVERSITY; The founder of McGill University, Montreal, was the Hon. James McGill, who was born in Glasgow in 1744. He was prominent in Canadian commerce, in politics and in military life. He died December 1813.

NINE OF DIAMONDS: There are two reasons assigned for the saying that the nine of diamonds is the curse of Scotland, namely, that it was on the back of that card that the Duke of Cumberland wrote the cruel order to give no quarter to the Scots who fought on the side of Prince Charles Edward Stuart at the battle of Culloden; and that it was owing to a Scotch member of Parliament, part of whose arms was the nine of diamonds having voted for the introduction of the malt tax into Scotland.

PHILADELPHIA: The St. Andrew's Society of Philadelphia was founded in 1739.

SCOTLAND: No part of Scotland is more than 40 miles from the sea.

SCOTT, SCOT: Translated by Whitley Stokes as "masters" or ''owners," and by Rhys as a ''cutting " or "carving tattooed or painted men."—MacBain.

SCOTT; Sir Walter Scott's Heir: The present male representative of Sir Walter Scott is Walter Joseph Maxwell Scott, and his descent from the author of Waverley is through the female line. Neither of Scott's sons left children. His daughter Sophia was married to J. G. Lockhart, his biographer, and left a son, Walter Scott Lockhart, and a daughter Charlotte Harriet Jane, who married James Robert Hope. Mrs. Hope succeeded her brother in the estate of Abbotsford, her husband adopting the name Scott. Her daughter, Mary Monica, alone survived of Sir Walter's great-grand-children. She married Joseph Constable-Maxwell, and her eldest surviving son is Walter Joseph Maxwell Scott, born 1875.
The first vessel which crossed the Atlantic from Glasgow was in the year 1719.

UNION OF SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND: The Union of Scotland and England took place in 1707.

UNITED STATES: Britain acknowledged the independence of the North American States in 1782, the same year as that in which the Crimea fell under the dominion of Russia.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON: Was founded largely through the efforts of Thomas Campbell the poet.

WHEAT; The first shipment of wheat and of flour from Upper Canada to Montreal, was sent by the Hon. James Crooks, a native of Kilmarnock, Scotland, who settled at Niagara in 1794. His son was the Hon. Mr. Crooks Minister of Education for Ontario.


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