This shows that the Company anciently comprised the Livery, yeomanry, and freemen, and the clerk believes that the freemen were the journeymen and the yeomanry the master blacksmiths. Under the _Quo warranto_ writ of Charles II. the Company surrendered with the other Guilds, but were reinstated to their rights and privileges by James II. in the first year of his reign by a charter dated March 18, 1684-85. The Act of Common Council of June 9, 1658, compelled all persons carrying on the trade to be free of the Company. Fifty years later the Company took special means to enforce it; but, like many of the other rights and privileges of the Guilds, through the altered conditions of trading the power of the Company has not been exercised for many years. The following entry from the books of the Founders’ Company, as extracted by Mr. Williams and printed in his “Annals,” is sufficiently interesting to merit a place in our present notice of the Blacksmiths:— 1660, Sept. 3. Memorandum. That upon this day the mastʳ and wardens did visit all the ffounders shopps in Bartholomew Lane and Lothebury—as well of them that were free of the ffounders company as those of the coppersmiths, and found in the shop of John Lucas one lock of brass fitted in wᵗʰ 20 oz. of lead and one 4-lb. weight unsealed, unsized, and unmarked with the owner’s stamp, which work was brought into the Hall. Founders’ Hall stood in Lothbury (hence the name of Founders’ Hall Court), and was let to the Electric Telegraph Company in 1853. The Founders of Bartholomew Lane and Lothbury have long since departed to other quarters of the City, and the sites of their ancient trading are now occupied by the great monetary fraternities, the Bank of England and other banks, and the Capel Court of the Stock Exchange. In May, 1750, the Committee of the Corporation of London specially reported on several petitions presented by masters and journeymen freemen, and it was resolved that the matters complained of required some regulation; that the Court of Aldermen any Tuesday may have the power to grant to any master freeman liberty to employ non-freemen, but under certain restrictions; and that all proceedings and prosecutions rest in the name of the Chamberlain, who, however, only represents the City, and does not obtain any personal benefit under such action. [Illustration: THE “EVIL ONE” ON HIS ROUNDS SEES THE EFFECT OF THE TREATY. THE HORSESHOE PUTS TO FLIGHT THE DEVIL, AND PURSUES THE “EVIL ONE” AND ALL HIS EVIL COMPANIONS.]