Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/241

. vi. SEPT. s, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 199 specially severe upon those who frequent taverns alter the hour of curfew. Giving short weight in bread is an offence constantly recurring, and the names are supplied of fraudulent " millers who were drawn on hurdles through the City as far as Neugate and there replevishea (i.e., redeemed by giving surety) for the peace of the lord the King. Subsequently the pillory was substituted for the punishment of being drawn upon hurdles. The Coronership of London appertained to the office of the King's Butler, ana the King's Butler was usually the City Chamberlain during the reigns of Edward I. ana Edward II. The heading of a Coroner's Roll is thus: " Roll of misadventures and felonies that occurred in the City of London be- tween the Feast of Si. Michael, anno 17 Edward I. I A. 11. 12891, and the Feast of St. Michael following; (Stephen de Abyndone being the King's Butler and Coroner of the City of London, John de Ileford his deputy, and John de Oxford and Adam do Sales- bury being Sheriffs." More than one effort to get into their own hands the appointment of coroner was made by the citizens, who complained that that worthy " n'est pas justisable par Mair, Aulder- mans, ne par autres Ministres d'ieell." Very curious information as to the procedure in the case of hold- ing an inquest is furnished, and there is much of interest as to the right of sanctuary and the re- sponsibility of the sheriffs for seeing that, during his forty days1 grace, the fugitive did not escape, which frequently he did. It is difficult to convey an idea of now much matter of antiquarian interest or value this volume contains. We can but com- mend it, like its predecessor, to the attention of our readers. Murray's Handy Classical Maps.—Germania, <kc., Palestine, <kc. (Murray.) THESE admirably executed maps, several of which are presented on a single sheet, are likely to be of high utility to students, Biblical and other. If they were less liable to be torn or otherwise injured they would supply at a very low price—one shilling— works which may be consulted with much ad- vantage. Over the Alps on a Bicyde. By Mrs. Fennell. (Fisher Unwin.) IT seems a strange ambition to seek to cross, one after another, on a bicycle the principal passes between Switzerland and Italy. Mrs. Pennell has, however, carried it into execution, and has estab- lished, it seems, a record in so doing. While we do not greatly admire the feat she accomplishes, we own that she has written a readable book con cerning her exploits, and that the illustrations by her husband with which it is accompanied con stitute a further attraction. MR. WILLIAM SHARP, the biographer of Rossetti. attempts in the Fortnightly an estimate of 'The Dramas of Gabriele d'Annunzio.' The praise be stowed is warm, extravagant even, but it is noi unmixed. Of the ' Sogno d' uno Mattino di Pri mavera' he says that there is perhaps "nothing else in its kind that can be compared with" it. Yet he is prepared to find that some will hold it "an undramatic drama; a morbid motive morbidly worked out," which indeed it is. There is, more over, "a signiticant ignoring or a blindness to the culpability of the beautiful forlorn transgressor.' This is, in fact, the attitude of Signer d'Annunzio and his class towards most moral transgressors )bligation to M. Maeterlinck, which for the rest s obvious enough, is acknowledged. Mr. W. B. Yeats has a paper on ' Irish Witch Doctors,' which hows these worthies as singularly in earnest in heir occupations, and fully convinced of the reality if the powers they claim. Whether Mr. Yeata limself is equally convinced we are not able to say. Co students of folk-lore his paper will be eminently attractive. It casts a brignt light upon the cer- titude of the Irish peasant as to the existence within his immediate neighbourhood of a spiritual race kindred with himself in very many respects, rhough but occasionally revealed to the senses of the few, and shows how this belief, which is, as it seems, ineradicable, lives side by side with Chris- Manity. The stories concerning intimacy with ' the others," as the fairy folk are called, are of deep interest. Col. W. Hughes Hallett enters into the strife concerning ' The Staging of Shakespeare,' and takes the side of Mr. Sidney Lee as opposed to ihat of Mr. Tree. Mr. Frederic Lees deals with 'Some Writers on War.' Mr. Malcolm Mcllwraith presents judicial views on 'The Delagoa Bay Arbi- tration.'—In the Nineteenth Century Sir Herbert Maxwell undertakes, under the title 'Our Allies at Waterloo,' a defence of those Netherlandish participants in the tight whose conduct has been the object of special attack by Thackeray " and a host of more negligible writers." To a certain extent his very readable paper is a reply to strictures upon his recent work upon Waterloo, with which we are unacquainted. Mr. Murray Guthrie writes on 'The South African War Hospitals,' and gives some terrible pictures of the sights which he witnessed. Neither sneers nor indignation will meet the arraignment he brings. Too nearly approaching the political are his con- clusions for us to quote them, strong as is the temptation so to do. Mr. Reginald A. Skelton's 'Statistics of Suicide' are of pregnant interest. The work he has undertaken has been thoroughly carried out, and though we do not feel always dis- posed to accept his explanations, the facts that he quotes are of great value. The increase in the rate of suicide in France is saddening. From 98 in the million in 1841 to 1860 it mounted up to 212 in 1885 to 1888. The highest rate is in Saxony, 333 per million: the lowest Ireland, 22. Denmark comes second with 259 per million, and Switzerland third with 220. England and Wales, in spite of all that has been written about the supposed tendency to suicide, reach only 78. Among the writer's con- clusions we find that " suicide is not a particular form of insanity," and that "insanity is less often the cause of suicide than is commonly supposed." Mr. VV. J. Fletcher writes on 'The Traditional " British Sailor,"' and Mr. Langton Douglas on 'The Maiolica of Siena.' 'The Oldest Picture- Book of All' is the fanciful title assigned by Mr. E. Walter Maunder to the starlit sky.—' In the Game- land our Fathers Lost' in Scribner'n is a record of travel and sport in British Columbia. It has good illustrations from photographs by the author, Mr. Frederic Irland. "Our fathers" in this case applies to the inhabitants of the United States, and not to Englishmen, and a curious tale is told of the manner in which the country came to be British. ' With Arctic Highlanders' depicts the Esquimaux. Among the numerous illustrations from photo- graphs it supplies are pictures of some good- looking Danish-Esquimaux women and children. Mr. Spears's 'The Slave Trade in America,' of