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when by incorporation trade bodies have been called into being competent to receive grants or confirmations of arms.

It is a matter of considerable uncertainty what helmet shall be used with an impersonal coat of arms. Personally I myself think it is greatly to be regretted that any crest has ever been granted to an impersonal coat of arms. Impersonal arms originated either in territorial arms of sovereignty, in guild devices, or in flags. lutting aside the first-named, which so far as the Sovereign was concerned had a personal character, there was neither need, nor use, nor any reason for the existence of helmet or crest. None of the ancient impersonal arms had crests, and I am afraid it must be admitted that the beginnings of crests for impersonal coats lay in the desire of the Kings of Arms to grant them, but behind this desire lay, not the endeavour to extract fees, but the necessity of bringing corporations under their control, and I am confident that the bulk of these carly grants of crests were nothing more than the bait to tempt corporations to acknowledge authority and record the arms they were using. The grant of the crest created the opportunity of recording and confirming the arms. The earliest of such grants date from the fifteenth century, a period before rank was denoted by the style and shape of the helmet. I know of no rules and can simply state the facts within my knowledge. With regard to the arms of Colonies, very few date back to the Stuart period. I have never seen a Royal Warrant of this period for the purpose. I very much doubt if an original is still in existence, but arms of Colonies which are of ancient origin appear always to be represented with the Royal helmet. This, one would imagine, is correct; there is certainly no reason why any other helmet should be used. But the majority of Colonial arms are quite modern. I can call nothing to mind granted between the reign of Charles II. and the reign of Queen Victoria. The modern Colonial warrants have no helmet and mantling either painted upon them or recited in the wording of the warrant. A number of them certainly have crests, but these are simply placed on wreaths above the escutcheon without any intervening helmet or mantling. From these facts, the conclusion I draw is, that the correct helmet and mantling for a colony should be that of the Sovereign, and I shall adhere to that opinion until I come across an actual warrant which uses a different helmet. With regard to the arms of counties, it should be remembered that until the passing of the act creating County Councils there was no body in any county competent to bear arms or to obtain a grant of arms. But in Scotland at any rate a grant had been made to "The County of Perth" and to the commissioners of supply for the County of Renfrew. These grants I have always doubted the real validity of, but they exist. Perth, though it has a crest, was emblazoned without a helmet. Berwick had no crest, but Renfrew was emblazoned with the helmet of an esquire. The English counties, of course, had no arms, but in one or two cases-for example, Kent and Middlesex-arms had by long repute been attributed to counties, but in no case was there any reputation of a crest, and so the question of the helmet did not arise. After the passing of the County Councils Act the first council in England to obtain a grant for the county was West Sussex: that had no crest and consequently no helmet. The next was Shropshire, which likewise and very