n in regard to stock. In this Connexion
they are generally styled yeomen's marks; and, from the circumstances of
the case, it seems certain that the adoption of such symbols took place
on the farm long before they were employed on the mart. The point has
been raised whether so-called "pictorial marks" are, and have always
been, nothing more than rude drawings of familiar objects. Mr. J. H.
Scott has dealt with this problem in an examination of Homeyer's theory
that marks were originally runic forms, and he expresses the opinion
that, assuming this to be true of certain types of marks, "they lost
their character at an early period and were regarded merely as signs or
symbols not as letters of an alphabet." As regards "pictorial marks," he
holds that the similarity to various objects is accidental. If so, this
is rather in favour of Homeyer's derivation of marks from runes, the
forms in some cases being identical. Moreover, as Homeyer notes, "signa"
for identifying cattle, horses, trees, clothes, and as boundary marks,
are referred to in the Lex Salica, the Edictum Rotharis, and the
Anglo-Saxon laws, so that we have here something like a pedigree of the
custom.

RURAL

CHAPTER XVII

RUS IN URBE

Urban customs appear of more interest and importance than rural usages
by reason of the greater complexity of relations implied by the
interdependence of members of a populous community. In the country the
organization of society is more simple, and the life of the fields, if
more tranquil, must always be less vivid, and, if the term may be
allowed, less conscious than that of the town. Nothing, however, is more
certain than that the formation of towns came after and was in most
instances the progeny of rural conditions. It is an amazing circumstance
that not until the middle of the last century did the great city of
Manchester emancipate itself from the last traces of feudal subjection
by the purchase of manorial and market rights. Just as the word
_pecunia_ is derived from _pecus_, just as the merchant's mark is in all
likelihood descended from that of the yeoman, even so in many municipal
appointments there is strong evidence of the once all-prevalent
agricultural element.

If we turn to London, we shall discover that its administration was
conducted, to a large extent, on country and manorial lines. The
necessary result was chaos. As Mr. J. H. Round observes, "The genius of
the Anglo-Saxon system was ill adapted