Money: Stock
Bullion, so called from the Latin bulla, rounded by art, is the technical description of gold and silver rounded into bars, and stored in the strong rooms of the Bank of England in readiness for coinage or for disposal to foreign Governments in that convenient form. Money vested in Government securities is known as Stock, or Government Stock, in allusion to the origin of the term, viz., the Anglo-Saxon stocc, a trunk, a stick; because prior to the year 1782, when the practice was abolished, the official acknowledgment of money received on behalf of the Government was written on both sides of a broad piece of wood, which was then cut in two; and the one portion, called the Stock, was delivered to the person lending the money, the Counterstock being retained at the Tally Office. The instrument of reckoning in this manner was styled the Tally, in accordance with the French verb tailler, to cut; while the correspondence of the Stock and Counterstock, or, in other words, the two portions of the Tally, furnished the origin of the modern phrase "to tally," as well as the designation TALLYMAN, or a trader who lets out goods, principally clothing, on the system of payment by weekly instalments. The word Consols is a contraction of "Consolidated Annuities," or the founded portion of the National Debt. The fund which provides for the annual reduction of the latter is styled the Sinking Fund. The French State Loans known as Tontines perpetuate the name of Lawrence Tonti, a Neapolitan protégé of Cardinal Mazarine, who projected the scheme in 1653. The annual statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the finances of this country is called the Budget, agreeably to the French bougetta, a little bag; because formerly the various documents were presented to Parliament in a leathern bag.
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