POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



137 



side, the two limbs are widely separated. 

 Interesting observations have also been made 

 of the motions of insects, arachnids, etc. 



Modern Survivals of Primitive Super- 

 stitions. The recently published book of 

 S. Baring-Gould on Strange Survivals fur- 

 nishes curious suggestions concerning the 

 origin and primary meaning of many cus- 

 toms and practices that have come down to 

 us from remote ages, and which we observe 

 or remark upon without a suspicion of their 

 significance. The superstition has gone out 

 of vogue in civilized lands that the sacrifice 

 of a human being in its foundations is neces- 

 sary to the stability of any important build- 

 ing. But King Theebaw, of Burmah, in our 

 own days, obeyed it ; and the feeling remains 

 among the superstitious in Europe that some 

 unseen power must be propitiated, or it will 

 some time and somehow exact its dues ; and 

 numerous legends prevail with reference to 

 grand structures of how the mysterious pow- 

 ers were propitiated in the beginning, or ex- 

 acted an equivalent for the neglected sacri- 

 fice. Only fifty years ago the people of 

 Halje are said to have tried to persuade the 

 builder of a bridge to immure a child in the 

 foundations in order to insure the stability 

 of the piers. The designs of gable ends, 

 carved ridge-tiles, representations of ani- 

 mals, such as horses and horsemen, and the 

 stone balls with which houses are adorned, 

 all have meanings. The completion of a 

 building was signalized by a sacrifice origi- 

 nally, just as the laying of the foundations 

 was. Horses were held to be sacred by the 

 Northern races, and formed, next to a man, 

 the worthiest sacrifice ; and if a horse's skull 

 was not put on the point of a gable, a horse's 

 head was carved. At a chieftain's death, his 

 horse was buried with him ; and to-day the 

 charger of an officer follows his coffin to the 

 grave. Poles, surmounted by branches of 

 leaves and flowers, protect the farmhouses 

 of the Black Forest from lightning, and rep- 

 resent the ancient oblation of a bunch of 

 grain to Odin's horse; and gables often 

 have carvings connected with this oblation 

 to Odin. At Yuletide oats are thrown out 

 for Santa Claus's horse (the colt of Odin 

 having been transferred to Santa Glaus), and 

 a person convalescent after a dangerous ill- 

 ness is said to have " given a feed to Death's 



horse." The sheaf of corn that is fastened 

 to the gable in Norway and Denmark now 

 an offering to the birds was originally a 

 feed for Odin's horse. Formerly, the last 

 bundle of oats in a field was cast into the air 

 by the reapers, for Odin at Yule to feed his 

 horse ; and a similar custom prevailed in 

 Devonshire, in Mr. Baring-Gould's recollec- 

 tion. The mediaeval habit of affixing the 

 heads of criminals to spikes on battlements 

 was the survival of the offering of skulls to 

 Woden, and the stone balls on the gables of 

 manor houses and on lodge gates are the sur- 

 vival of the right of life and death possessed 

 by the lords of the manor. 



"Slate Socialism" in New Zealand. 



At a recent meeting of the Royal Colonial 

 Institute of Great Britain the Earl of Onslow 

 described some experiments in what was 

 called state socialism that had been under- 

 taken in New Zealand. The Government 

 had expended large sums in providing water 

 for mining purposes for working miners, and 

 had given the men the task of repairing 

 the water works, remunerating them, not in 

 money, but in orders for water for the pur- 

 pose of getting gold. It had worked a sys- 

 tem of settling men upon land, with advances 

 of money for house-building and cultivation. 

 In a visit to two of these settlements one 

 formed by voluntary association, and the 

 other from the unemployed the speaker had 

 found the voluntary association prosperous, 

 while the unemployed were calling upon the 

 Government to take them out of " the hole " 

 they had been brought into ; and he formed 

 the opinion that, while the Government was 

 not in any case without ample security for 

 its advances, yet only careful selection of the 

 land and of the men would secure success. 

 The colony had acquired by purchase, at the 

 owner's valuation, the largest estate in the 

 country, and opened it for settlement; and 

 he believed that, so long as it did not unduly 

 saddle the colony with debt, this experiment 

 in the resumption of the national estate 

 would be likely to prove satisfactory to the 

 Government. The labor department in New 

 Zealand had been more successful than the 

 one abolished last May in Victoria, because 

 numerous country branches had been created 

 instead of calling all the workmen to the 

 central office in the capital. In the system 



