YEKATERINBURG (or Ekaterinburg or Jekaterinburg), in the government of Perm in Asiatic Russia, forming the capital of the mining districts of the Ural. It is a modern place, and a considerable fair has sprung up, superseding that formerly held at Irbit. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES [1] We shall find that at a later period the sale of slaves was introduced into the fairs and markets of England and the north of Europe generally. [2] Suetonius records that Claudius Cæsar made suit unto the Consuls for a licence to hold fairs and markets for his own private manors and lands.—_Sueton._, ch. xxii. [3] The protection from “evil tolls” was also a matter of great consequence. It was to be regarded as a security from paying so large a custom or imposition upon any goods that the fair profit is lost therein, and the trade thereby prevented. The original term expressive of this is _Mala Tolneta_, the word toll or tolt being derived from the Saxon _Tholl_, Low Latin _Tolnetum_, or _Theolonium_, which signifies a payment in markets, towns, and fairs, for goods and cattle bought and sold. It also stands for any manner of custom, subsidy, imposition, or sum of money taken of the buyer for the importing or exporting of any wares; and it may be assumed that the words in _Magna Charta_ were used in their evident sense. The compound word _Mala-tolneta_, which appears in the original text, signifies bad or evil tolls, or unjust exactions. In the later statutes it is rendered into French by the ancient term _Maletout_ (_Vide_ R. Thomson’s “Notes on the Great Charters,” 1829). [4] In illustration of the early custom of holding foreigners living or trading in England responsible for the offences and crimes of other foreigners, the following instance may be given. In 1301 a person belonging to the house of the Spini, of Florence, was killed in a squabble with some other people belonging to the same house in England, and the guilty person having absconded, the officers of justice seized the bodies and goods of other persons belonging to the company, and also (luckily for the merchants), a sum of money collected by them in Ireland for the _Pope_, and some merchandise purchased on his account. He (the Pope) immediately sent a Bull to England requiring the liberation of the people and property arrested (“Fœdera,” v. ii., p. 891). [5] This practice remained in force in France from the age of Charlemagne down to our own times. [6] It had before this time been quite customary to hold fairs in churchyards. [7] In the days of slavery in the United States of America, there was in frequent use the following couplet: “The Lord him knows the nigger well, He knows the nigger by _the smell_,” &c. [8] The Vagrancy and Mendicity Acts were called into aid. Under these, “homeless beggars” were to be sent to their own parish. It is probable that the numbers were too great to be dealt with efficiently.