Ill 



LOCAL MUSEUMS 1 



ATTENTION has already been directed, in several letters which 

 have recently appeared in the newspapers, to the desirability 

 of a central institution in which the numerous historical 

 documents and objects of interest connected with the county 

 might riot only be preserved from destruction, but also made 

 available for study and reference. Many of these, which may 

 be considered trifles now, will be of great value in after time, 

 as illustrating the history and mode of life of generations 

 passed or passing away. Many customs change with great 

 rapidity, and all evidences of their existence disappear, or 

 only remain in literary allusions, often difficult to understand 

 without actual illustrations. Take for instance the old flint 

 and steel and brimstone match, the universal source of 

 illumination in even my early days. Most living people, 

 accustomed to the daily use of one of the greatest triumphs of 

 applied science, know nothing of the difficulties their grand- 

 fathers had to contend with in supplying this most necessary 

 want of common life. I doubt if many of our generation 

 were to see the old apparatus, whether they would know what 

 it was for or how used, and though one must have existed in 

 every cottage in the county fifty years ago, it is possible that 

 it would be very difficult to procure one, even for a museum, 

 at the present time. The candle -snuffers, without which 

 we could not exist in my childhood, are now as extinct as 

 the Dodo. Take again the threshing-flail, an instrument in 



1 From a letter in support of the establishment of a County Museum for 

 Buckinghamshire (24th November 1891), and an address at the opening of the 

 Perth Museum (29th November 1895). 



