We have received a very handsome volume, the first of
two in which the work is to be included, History of the Company of Cutlers in Hanamshire, by Robert Eadon Leader (The Com- pany of Cutlers, Sheffield). The first chapter deals with the period before incorporation, a time of which there are some scattered notices. Incorporation took place in 1624. It was not long before differences arose. Various conflicts happened, and not a few changes of fortune, during the hundred and ninety years that followed. The first revolt occurred in 1627, when an ordinance of the Company, intended, it would appear, to protect buyers from bogus articles, proposed that no knives of less value than 5d. each should be gilded. Various restrictions on labour and trade, which it would be impossible to follow hero, became the causes of strife. In 1814 an Act was passed which deprived the Company of its old powers; in 1860 a new career was opened before it by the Act for the Registry of Marks. Another portion of Mr. Leader's book is .concerned with the "external activities" of the Company. It has played an important part in various local affairs, and even in politics. We hope to be able to return to the subject when the second volume appears.
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