ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD HERE'S a yedscratter with a growl to it. An old chum of mine demands to know what happened to the stuffed tiger which, he tells me, graced the old Victoria Park Museum of fond memory and later the top of the imposing staircase at the St Helens central library.

Tommy Rafferty also recalls other vanished exhibits from the park museum, including replica steam locomotives . . . "made by a bloke from Rigby Street."

While customers of the old column chew over that one, I've had a neatly-encapsulated answer to an earlier brainteaser in which a reader asked for the origins of being let off 'scot-free.'

It turns out that this has nothing to do with men in kilts. For Jack Gartside of Roby Street, Toll Bar, explains that it means being excused, during olden times, from paying tax.

"It comes from Scot and Lot," says Jack, "which was a levy on all subjects, according to their ability to pay. Scot means tribute or tax, and Lot means allotment, or portion allotted.

"To pay Scot and Lot, therefore, is to pay the ordinary tributes and also the personal tax alloted. So scot free means tax free - without payment."

MANY thanks for that scholarly explanation.

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