626 SHORT NOTICES October away, great towns had sprung up, Chicago ruled the middle west, and, both in an agricultural and industrial state, Illinois had established its prime importance in the life of the nation. And at the same time Illinois had been the scene of some of the great political events of the time the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the nomination of Lincoln at the Chicago convention of 1860 had changed its old political allegiance from democrat to republican — and borne its part in the great appeal to arms. The book is a solid piece of work ; it is packed with matter, political, economic, and cultural ; it is illustrated with portraits and political maps, and contains a bibliography and index. So thorough a history of an important state is a useful contribution to American history. E. A. B. By his Guide to the Records deposited in the Public Record Office of Ireland (Dublin : Stationery Office, 1919), Mr. Herbert Wood, the assistant deputy-keeper, has supplied a long-felt want. It was not until the build- ing of the Public Record Office was completed in 1867 that the extant records of Ireland were suitably housed. Considering the many vicissitudes through which these records have passed owing to improper storage, careless custody, theft, and the pernicious practice of chief governors who, up to the close of the seventeenth century, habitually carried off all their official documents, the marvel is that so many have survived. The early Chancery Enrolments were nearly all burned in 1304 by a fire in St. Mary's Abbey. In the same century many government records lodged in the treasury of the exchequer, then outside the walls, were destroyed
- by natives from the mountains '. About 1758 many plea rolls were lost
by fire in the Birmingham Tower, which stood at the south-west corner of the Castle (not the south-east side, as stated by a slip on p. viii). An accidental fire in the Custom House in 1711 consumed many records of the Privy Council, and it is melancholy to have to add that 210 years later yet another fire, this time not accidental, in a new and more magnifi- cent Custom House has caused, if not greater loss to historians, greater inconvenience to the public. Mr. Wood has grouped the various classes of documents in alphabetical order under the court, office, or other body from which they have issued, adding brief descriptions of the character of each class, so that, aided by a fairly full index, the searcher's task is rendered as easy as may be. This work of compilation and arrangement must have been very laborious, and seems to have been adequately per- formed. G. H. 0. In the last few years the meaning of the word ' plebiscite ' has crystal- lized from any form o£ referendum to the narrower sense of that special mechanism by which the sentiments of the inhabitants of a definite territory are ascertained as to the transfer of their allegiance from one state to another. The peace has also given it much topical importance. Hence the publication of two works of research, Miss Sarah Wambaugh's Mono- graph on Plebiscites (Oxford : University Press, 1920), and Mr. Joannes Matterns's The Employment of the Plebiscite in the Determination of Sovereignty (Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins Press, 1920). The latter book covers a rather wider range than the former, as the author intrepidly links
