200
NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. vm. SEPT. e, ma.
The volume contains 103 plates and a plan ol
Chelsea in 1717. The general editors, Sh
Laurence Gomme and Mr. Philip Norman, and
all who have co-operated are to be congratulated
on the production of this important addition to
the history of Chelsea.
The Fortnightly Review for September opens -with a study by M. Maurice Maeterlinck of the evidence upon which it may be concluded that life persists after death. He deals chiefly with the work of the Psychical Research Society, and Jris paper is to have a continuation. Miss Violet Hunt gives us, in ' Take us the Little Foxes,' an account of the Weinlese in South Germany in 1911, a characteristic piece of work the pattern (so to put it) strong, the fibre rather coarse. Mr. Augustus Balli's study of Charlotte Bronte is good reading, despite the fact that he has not done what it is hardly possible to do found anything to say about her that a lover of the Brontes has not thought of before. Mr. Horace B. Samuel writes on Verhaeren's poetry according to the latest convention of criticism and gives us a succession of brilliantly composed sentences, into which (when things threaten to look monotonous) the word " red " is thrust. We liked much Mr. P. P. Howe's careful and suggestive paper on 'The Plays of Granville Barker ' ; and Mr. W. L. George's plea in ' The Drama for the Common Man' is decidedly worth attention. Mr. E. A. Baughan writes well on ' Moussorgsky's Operas.' The chief political papers are Mr. J. A. B. Marriott's ' Evolution of the English Land System, Part I.' ; Sir Gilbert Parker's ' The Welding of the Empire ' ; and ' The Balance of Power in Europe : Germany's Decline,' by " Excubitor."
THE September number of The Nineteenth -Century is largely devoted to the consideration of practical affairs. Thus Sir Harry Johnston has a strong and w^ell-considered article on ' The Protection of Fauna, Flora, and Scenery,' a matter to which, most reasonably, he would have our legislators turn their attention during the interval in which party measures await the fruition of the Parliament Act. Mr. P. P. Howe, writing about ' The Circulating Libraries : their Complaint and its Cure,' urges that the middle- man the library should be abolished, and that an association of publishers should deal directly with readers. Prof. Lindsay, from the late International Medical Congress, describes ' The Main Currents of Contemporary Medical Thought,' which, to mention but one line, seem setting definitely in the direction of a wider propagation of purely medical knowledge among the laity. The principal literary articles are M. le Pasteur Bey's rather too lengthy and dis- cursive ' Bomance of John Stuart Mill ' ; Madame Longard de Longgarde's pleasant discussion of works by Elizabeth von Heyking, Bloem, and Alfons Paquet, entitled ' Becent German Fiction ' ; and Mr. Yoshio Markino's quaint, original, and charming essay on ' Memory and Imagination.'
Ix the September Cornhill Magazine military interest rather predominates. Sir Edward Thackeray contributes the first instalment of his ' Becollections of the Siege of Delhi,' which, in an ungarnished, straightforward style, give not only a picture of the general course of events,
but a great number of accessory details. Col.
Callwell s Peninsular Battlefields ' is even better
in the fine anecdotes it gives than in the vigorous
description of Peninsular actions. Mme. Doro-
thea Gerard's ' With the Austrians in Italy ' is
drawn partly from a " little, much-bleached note-
book, the pencilled diary of a young dragoon
officer, partly from Col. Angeli's Memoirs, and
,
r f livel y writing, full of incident.
Mr. &. Hilton louiig on ' Imagination in Child- hood puts rather neatly childish experiences, which, however, cannot be said to be very un- usual. The Borrow Commemoration at Norwich is described with considerable gusto by Urbanus Sylvan. Perhaps the most interesting paper in the number is Mr. T. C. Fowle's ' The Tragedy of Karbala, an account of the Buz-i-Qatl, or tenth day of the festival with which the Shia Moham- medans celebrate the death of Hussain at Karbala.
Folk-Lore. Vol. XXIII. No. 4. (Nutt.) THE articles in this number include ' Guy Fawkes' Day,' by Miss Charlotte S. Burne, and ' Modern Bussian Popular Songs,' by M. Trophimoff. The notes on Cotswold Place-Lore and Customs ' are continued. At Bandwick, we are told, " a rose- mary bush will not flourish except in a garden where the woman is master of the house." At the same place, on the eve of Low Sunday, locally known as W^ap Sunday, it was customary to elect and duck a " mayor." Local tradition says that the custom originated at the building of the church some six or seven hundred years ago, when " at the supper given to the workmen the
hod ' man drank to such an excess that he became noticeable to the other workmen, who there and then took him to the pool and washed him in its waters." The merry-making of the " Wap " was continued over the Wednesday, during which time there was feasting and dancing. " In 1847 or 1848 an attempt was made to stop the Wap, but t could not be done, as the people of Bandwick had been granted a charter giving them full per- mission to hold it or keep ' Lord Mayor's Day ' 'as it is sometimes called), on condition that a nayor was elected, and carried in the chair to
- he pool every year. If they failed in this but
once, the practice could be legally stopped. ... .In 1892 the Wap was held for the last time. All the paraphernalia of the mayor's procession vras burned a few years ago, except the (quite modern) chair of state. The whole thing had >ecome a disorderly rabble, but the place it held in the affections of Bandwick people may be gathered from the last request of an old ' Wap- )er ' : * Bury me just inside the churchyard wall, /hen I shall hear the Mayor go down.' "
There is an excellent portrait of Andrew Lang, vith facsimile of his characteristic signature.
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