Tally

Tally (Fr. tailler, 'to cut'), the name given to the notched sticks which, till the beginning of the 19th century, were used in England for keeping accounts in Exchequer, answering the double purpose of receipts and public records. They were well-seasoned rods of hazel or willow, inscribed on one side with notches indicating the sum for which the tally was an acknowledgment, and on two opposite sides with the same sum in Roman characters, along with the name of the payer and the date of the transaction. Different kinds of notches, differing in breadth, stood for a penny, a shilling, a pound, £20, £100, £1000. The tally was cleft through the middle by the deputy-chamberlain with knife and mallet, so that each piece contained one of the written sides, and a half of every notch; and the one half was retained by the payer as his receipt, while the other was preserved in Exchequer. At the union of England and Scotland a store of hazel rods for tallies was sent to Edinburgh, but never made use of. An act of George III. (1783) decreed the discontinuance of tallies in Exchequer, but some use was made of them till 1812; the old tallies were ordered to be destroyed in 1834; and the overheating of the stove within the precincts of the House of Lords in which the tallies were burned caused the conflagration in which the old Houses of Parliament were destroyed.