In message <002e01c48edf$8cda8980$0200a8c0@bob>, John Barton <bartonlander@free.net.nz> writes >Sandra Lovegrove wrote: > >> I seem to recall that in my youth all these measures were tabulated >> neatly on the shiny back covers of "Silvine" exercise books, along >> with Apothecaries' measures (pennyweights, drachms, etc.) and some >> strange mumbo-jumbo called "metric measure". >My little tables book was priced 2d. It went from 1X1=1 to the various wine >and ale measures in different counties, and the size of a barrel (not to be >confused with a cask, which could be any size). I was intrigued by a note >:"N.B. butchers don't accept farthings", wondering why, and what they would >do if I insisted on enforcing my farthing collection as legal tender up to >5s. legally, they had to - it was the smallest legal tender coin. And in the days when nonconformists HAD to marry in Church, there is a newspaper piece showing that the local ironmonger did so, but paid the fee in farthings, and for good measure, scattered them on the church floor, so the clerk and clergyman had to scrabble round for them. -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society