A440 OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
good contributions to our knowledge of the dialect by 
W. Hooexamer, J. F. Ll. Sconuiper, A. L. van HAssext, 
and J. Hassema (Vol. I, pp. 213-31; Vol. V, pp. 136-505 
Congress Vol., pp. 219-86). Sufficient materials would thus 
appear to be available from which a conspectus of the language 
might be worked out. 
The first volume of “‘ De Indische Gids”’ for last year (pp. 13-59, 
191-242) brings to a conclusion a series of valuable articles, by 
Dr. G. A. WILKEN, on spirit worship as practised by the people 
of Malaysia and Polynesia. It is to be hoped that these papers 
will be published separately, and thus become accessible toa 
larger circle of students. 
The “ Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie” for 1885 has a 
series of papers by J. A. B. Wisgtins, on prisons and forced 
labour in British India and the Dutch Indian possessions. 
Only a few pages (I, 277-80) are given to the Straits Settle- 
ments. 
R. RK. 
FOLK-LORE OF CHINA: 
Tur following circular has been issued by the Local 
Secretary in Hongkong of the Folk-Lore Society of Great Bri- 
tain : 
Hongkong, 7th June, 1886. 
Srr,—Having been appointed to act in this part of the 
world as local Secretary of the Folk-Lore Society of Great 
Britain, it has appeared to me after reflection that the only 
possible way of dealing effectively with the vast field of Folk- 
Lore in China, which has received but slight cultivation at the 
hands of western scholars, is to invite the co-operation of all 
Europeans and Americans resident in China. There can be 
little doubt that, either by their position or influence, they 
could materially ‘contribute towards a thorough investigation 
of a subject which is daily becoming of greater interest, and 
which is gradually assuming a place of no small importance 
among other branches of science. 
