_Riddles._--It would take up too much of your valuable time and space to insert all the riddles for which correspondents cannot find answers; but will you find means to ask, through your pages, if any clever Oedipus would allow me to communicate to him certain enigmas which puzzle me greatly, and which I should very much like to have solved. RUBI. _Straw Bail._--Fielding, in his _Life of Jonathan Wild_, book i. chap. ii., relates that Jonathan's aunt "Charity took to husband an eminent gentleman, whose name I cannot learn; but who was famous for {86} so friendly a disposition, that he was bail for above a hundred persons in one year. He had likewise the remarkable humour[7] of walking in Westminster Hall with a straw in his shoe." What was the practice here referred to, and what is the origin of the expression "a man of straw," which is commonly applied to any one who appears, or pretends to be, but is not, a man of property? Straw bail is, I believe, a term still used by attorneys to distinguish insufficient bail from "justifiable" or sufficient bail. J. LEWELYN CURTIS. [Footnote 7: "humour" corrected from "honour" by erratum in Issue 170.--Transcriber.] _Wages in the West in 1642._--The Marquis of Hertford and Lord Poulett were very active in the West in the year 1642. In the famous collection of pamphlets in the British Museum (113, 69.) is contained Lord Poulett's speech at Wells, Somerset: "His lordship, with many imprecations, oaths, and execrations (in the height of fury), said that it was not fit for any yeoman to have allowed him from his own labours any more than the poor moiety of ten pounds a-year; and when the power shall be totally on their side, they shall be compelled to live on that low allowance, notwithstanding their estates are gotten with a great deal of labour and industry. "Upon this the people attempted to lay violent hands upon Lord Poulett, who was saved by a regiment marching in or by at the moment." What was Lord Poulett's precise meaning? Do we not clearly learn from the above, that the Civil War was due to more than a mere choosing between king and parliament among the humbler classes of the remote country districts? GEORGE ROBERTS. _Literary Frauds of Modern Times._--In a work by Bishop (now Cardinal) Wiseman, entitled _The Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion_, 3rd edition, vol. ii. p. 270., occurs the following remark: "The most celebrated literary frauds of modern times, the _History of Formosa_, or, still more, the _Sicilian Code of Vella_, for a time perplexed the world, but were in the end discovered." Will you, or any of your readers, kindly refer me to any published account of the frauds alluded to in this passage? I have a faint remembrance of having read some remarks respecting the _Code of Vella_, but am unable to recall the circumstances.