* In purshasing and selling, it was once customary for traders to have two sticks, or one stick cleft into two parts, and to mark with a score or notch, on each, the number or quantity of goods delivered, -- the seller keeping one stick, and the purchaser the other. Before the use of writing, this, or something like it, was the only method of keeping accounts; and tallies were received as evidence in courts of justice. In the English exchequer were tallies of loans, one part being kept in the exchequer, the other being given to the creditor in lieu of an obligation for money lent to government.

They were framed the tallies for each other. Dryden.

Tally shop, a shop at which goods or articles are sold to customers on account, the account being kept in corresponding books, one called the tally, kept by the buyer, the other the counter tally, kept by the seller, and the payments being made weekly or otherwise by agreement. The trade thus regulated is called tally trade. Eng. Encyc. -- To strike tallies, to act in correspondence, or alike. [Obs.] Fuller.

They are not so well tallied to the present juncture. Pope.

Tally on (Naut.), to dovetail together.

I found pieces of tiles that exactly tallied with the channel. Addison.

Your idea . . . tallies exactly with mine. Walpole.

Tally on (Naut.), to man a rope for hauling, the men standing in a line or tail.