DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

(C 40an) In the year 1711 there were 200 public Sedan chairs licensed at 10s. each. The adornment of the private ones indicated the wealth of the owner. Probably none could rival the one presented by Queen Anne to the King of Prussia, and which was valued at 80000. Ladies rode little, and when they did they pre- ferred the pillion to the side-saddle, holdmg on by the belt of a cavalier or groom. That the public resorted to sports of a question- able character is not to be wondered at, considering that sight-seeing did not exist. There were no public galleries, museums, or places of instruction and recreation. In the Tower of London only there was a collec- tion of arms and curiosities, combined with a show of wild beasts, which attracted occasional visitors. The term ‘lionizing’ has sprung from the fact of the people going to see the lions in the Tower. Yet it is to the time of Queen Anne that we must be grateful for the establishment of the British Museum. Sir Hans Sloane, a famous physician of the day, after whom Sloane Square is named, to whom its site then belonged and from whom it passed, through marriage, to the Cadogan family, collected during his travels in the West Indies tropical fauna, as well as other curiosities. These he left to the nation, and after having been