we may name Hon. H. Beaugrand (ex-Mayor of Montreal), Dr. Louis Fréchette (lauréat of the French Academy), Mr. W. J. White, Mr. Henry Carter, Dr. Robert Bell, F. G. S., Dr. Beers, Dr. Le May, Dr. Kingsford, F. R. S. Can., and Dr. S. E. Dawson, Queen's printer. Several informal meetings were held during the winter of 1892, and in April of that year a permanent organization was effected.[1] The membership roll shows a list of about sixty names. Many interesting papers have been read at the meetings, and the social element has been combined with serious study in a most delightful manner.
It is hardly necessary to call attention to the opportunities for the study of folk lore in Canada. This has been done by Mr. Reade in a very suggestive paper read before the Montreal society.[2] We need only refer to the mingling of races in Canada. The Indian tribes of the Northwest; the descendants of the pioneers of French Canada, of the loyalists, and of the Scotch, Irish, English, and Germans; the scattered settlements of Russians, Hungarians, Norsemen, Chinese, etc., in western Canada—these folk afford as rich field for inquiries of the folk-lorist as he or she would desire. Some curious items of superstition, or traditionary lore, found in the provinces, have been collected, but much remains in the mouths of the folk, the plain people in country towns and districts. Meanwhile a series of investigations relating to the Indian tribes of the Northwest are going on under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, aided by the Canadian Government.
The New York branch of the American Folk-lore Society was organized in February of this year.[3] The membership at the first meeting was about forty; it is now double that number. The metropolis has become the stamping-ground for representatives of all the nations of the earth. There are old-fashioned people as well as Huns and Vandals in New York. The right person will find plenty of folk lore in the "quarters" of the Italians, Poles, Jews, Czechs, Hungarians, Chinese, etc. Within a radius of one hundred miles around the city there are settlements that would furnish the material eagerly wanted by the Folk-lore Society.
- ↑ The officers of the Montreal branch of the American Folk-lore Society for 1893 are as follows: President, Prof. D. P. Penhallow, McGill University; vice-presidents, M. Louis Fréchette and Mr. John Reade; secretary, Mr. F. E. Came; treasurer, Mr. W. J. White; ladies' committee, Mrs. Robert Reid, Mrs. L. Fréchette, Mrs. H. B. Ames, Mrs. K. Boissevain. Miss Macdonnell, and Miss Van Horne.
- ↑ Published in the Dominion Illustrated Monthly for June, 1892.
- ↑ The officers of this branch are as follows: President, Dr. H. Carrington Bolton; first vice-president, Mr. George Bird Grinnell; second vice-president, Mr. Richard Watson Gilder; secretary, Mr. William B. Tuthill; treasurer, Mr. Sydney A. Smith; ladies' committee, Mrs. Henry Draper, Mrs. Harriet M. Converse, and Mrs. Mary J. Field.
