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May 31

Three of a kind

I occasionally walk down Three Colts Lane in Bethnal Green (it contains a railway station). While walking in Poplar this afternoon I came across Three Colt Street. I know the origin of Seven Sisters and Seven Dials, but what is the significance of three colts? 2A00:23C1:D100:1400:4103:C0FD:880A:9C2 (talk) 14:24, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Probably taken from a coat of arms - a quick check shows several families with three colts on their coat of arms (one of them being the Colt family [1]. Possibly by way of a pub sign, or perhaps because one such family owned land in the area before it was developed. [2] Wymspen (talk) 15:47, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

According to thestreetnames - Little slices of London's history, the lane "takes its name from an inn sign".

The History of Signboards: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (p. 178) by Jacob Larwood & John Camden Hotten, London 1867 says somewhat inscrutably; "The THREE COLTS, in Bride Lane, 1652, is represented on a trades token by three colts running; such a sign gave its name to a street in Limehouse".

Pub history and London says a beer house called The Three Colts was at 58 Three Colt Street, Limehouse, from 1869 until 1915.

The Compleat Compting-house Companion: Or, Young Merchant and Tradesman's Sure Guide (p. 428) of 1763 mentions Three Colts Street, Limehouse, so the pub above may either have replaced an earlier one or be named after the road.

Alansplodge (talk) 18:08, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Second edition of Langley and Belch's street-directory, or companion to their Improved Map of London (p. 142) of 1817 has; "Three Colts, near Limehouse church". Alansplodge (talk) 18:32, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ballot

Hello, precise my request, I hope someone can help me. If you notice the ballot well, you see that there is a space to puncture right in the line of the candidate write in. I wonder: the forum must be made, agree, write the name and insert the card in the urn. But at the time of counting, did the machine automatically separate the vote and then be counted by hand? I mean, did it work like with optical scanners today? https://americanhistory.si.edu/vote/large/6_04b_lrg.jpg Thanks a lot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.41.100.198 (talk) 14:40, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that particular ballot style was read by Punched card reader. Usually card readers had a method for separating out any cards that the machine could not read properly, allowing humans to read the card by hand. It is very similar to today's optical scanners. --M @r ē ino 03:22, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Since the write-in candidate has a punch like any others, this would not produce a card "that the machine would not read properly". However, it would be a simple matter to set a card sorter to detect any cards where holes were punched for the write-in candidates, and put them into a separate pile for hand-counting. (And I must say that I find this design of ballot rather surprising. I'm old enough to have worked with punch cards and my immediate reaction is that a human punching holes by hand could not realiably do it with sufficient accuracy to ensure that a card reader would be able to read them properly. So I'd expect there to be a lot of spoiled ballots. But I have no experience with such elections either. All elections I've voted in have used hand-counted paper ballots or optical-mark-recognition ballots.) --76.69.46.228 (talk) 05:51, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Many years ago I worked for a firm which was handling a free Lotto promotion. The entry form was mocked up and tests showed the OCR equipment read it perfectly. However, in printing there was one crucial mistake - the entrants had to detach the entry before posting and the marks which permitted the OCR equipment to align the form were printed alongside the perforation. Result - the machine rejected the entries and all seven million of them had to be scrutinised manually. We also handled the ballot for the election of the leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party. This passed off without incident. 2A00:23C1:CD81:F01:65C4:8E95:C1A3:D61A (talk) 11:32, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]