in 1822. Its terms are these. It is a patent for " making a forensic wig, the curls whereof are constructed on a principle to su persede the necessity of frizzing, curling, or using hard pomatum, and for forming the curls in a way not to be uncurled; and also for the tails of the wig not to require tying in dress ing; and, further, the impossibility of any per son untying them." This patent contained the principle of the present " fixed " wig, of which they are the makers. Till then wigs had been made of human hair, but by using white horsehair' with a judiciously small quantity of black hair, a wig bearing a close resemblance to the old powdered wig was produced. The proportion is about one of black to five of white. The invention was mainly introduced to enable bench and bar to evade Pitt's tax on hair-powder. The old wigs were much heavier, owing to the quantity of grease which was being continu ally rubbed into them. The lining was necessarily thick, and contrasted very unfavorably with the present light silkribbon frame. The powder was always coming off; and, with the old wigs, cleanli ness was out of the question. Messrs. Ravenscrofts' walls are hung with
a valuable collection of portraits of legal celebrities, gradually acquired since 1726. The Lord Chancellors begin with Lord Chancellor Somers, 1697. The portraits of Brougham and Erskine, sketched at the trial of Queen Caroline, are particularly happy likenesses. The earliest of the Lord Chief Justices of the King's Bench on the walls is Lord Raymond, 1725; and the first of the Common Pleas Chief Justices, Lord Walsingham, 1771. The Chief Barons of the Exchequer begin with Sir Geoffrey Gil bert, 1725, and end with Sir Fitzroy Kelly, the last of the Chief Barons. In nearly every case the portrait bears the signature of the learned judge whom it represents. These portraits show the style of judicial wigs during more than a couple of centuries. Hogarth's " Five Orders of Periwigs " finds a place on the walls. An interesting auto graph-book is kept, containing the signa tures of celebrities on the bench and at the bar during the last sixty-seven years, as well as of the Speakers of the House of Commons, including Mr. Peel. On the wall is a portrait of Lord Eversley, a former Speaker, who died recently at the age of ninety-five. — Law Journal.
