helmet and torse, two arms
supporting a laurel proper and issuing out of a cloud argent.
Supporters, two Indian goats argent, attired and hoofed or; motto,
"Serve and Obey." Maitland describes their annual expenditure in charity
as L3,500. The number of the Company consists of one master, four
wardens, forty-five assistants, 360 livery, and a large company of
freemen. This Company is the eighth in order of the chief twelve City
Companies.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF HABERDASHERS' HALL.]

In the reign of Edward VI. there were not more than a dozen milliner's
shops in all London, but in 1580 the dealers in foreign luxuries had so
increased as to alarm the frugal and the philosophic. These dealers sold
French and Spanish gloves, French cloth and frieze, Flemish kersies,
daggers, swords, knives, Spanish girdles, painted cruises, dials,
tablets, cards, balls, glasses, fine earthen pots, salt-cellars, spoons,
tin dishes, puppets, pennons, inkhorns, toothpicks, fans, pomanders,
silk, and silver buttons.

The Haberdashers were incorporated by a Charter of Queen Elizabeth in
1578. The Court books extend to the time of Charles I. only. Their
charters exist in good preservation. In their chronicles we have only a
few points to notice. In 1466 they sent two of their members to attend
the coronation of Elizabeth, queen of Edward IV., and they also were
represented at the coronation of the detestable Richard III. Like the
other Companies, the Haberdashers were much oppressed during the time of
Charles I. and the Commonwealth, during which they lost nearly L50,000.
The Company's original bye-laws having been burnt in the Great Fire, a
new code was drawn up, which in 1675 was sanctioned by Lord Chancellor
Finch, Sir Matthew Hale, and Sir Francis North.

The dining-hall is a lofty and spacious room. About ten years since it
was much injured by fire, but has been since restored and handsomely
decorated. Over the screen at the lower end is a music gallery, and the
hall is lighted from above by six sun-burners. Among the portraits in
the edifice are whole lengths of William Adams, Esq., founder of the
grammar school and almshouses at Newport, in Shropshire; Jerome Knapp,
Esq., a former Master of the Company; and Micajah Perry, Esq., Lord
Mayor in 1739; a half-length of George Whitmore, Esq., Lord Mayor in
1631; Sir Hugh Hammersley, Knight, Lord Mayor in 1627; Mr. Thomas
Aldersey, merchant, of Banbury, in Cheshire, who, in 1594, vested